Cheeskman. — On the Flora of the Nelson District. 801 



5. Carex leporina, L. 

 C. ovalis, Good. 



This is also an abundant plant in Northern Europe and Asia, and in 

 some parts of North America. In the " Flora Antarctica " it is recorded as 

 a doubtful inhabitant of the Falkland Islands, but I am not aware that it 

 has been collected elsewhere in the southern hemisphere. The following 

 description is drawn up from New Zealand specimens : — 



Culms 12-18 inches high, rather slender. Leaves usually much shorter, 

 flat, grassy, ^ inch broad. Spikelets 4-8, androgynous, ovoid, pale brown, 

 shining, collected into an oblong head an inch long ; male flowers at the 

 base. Bracts wanting, or small and glume-like. Perigynia as long as the 

 acute glumes, elliptic, plano-convex, striate, winged, narrowed into a long 

 beak ; margins and beak finely serrulate. Stigmas 2. 



Hab. — Motueka Valley, Ngatimoti, and other places in the western por- 

 tion of the Nelson district. 



6. Carex cinnamomea, n. sp. 



Slender, 1-2 feet high. Leaves longer than the culms, with harsh 

 cutting edges, flat, striate, J-|- inch broad. Culms drooping, bracts long 

 and leafy. Spikelets 5-8, distant, upper sessile, lower pedunculate, curved, 

 nodding, 2^4 inches long, J inch in diameter ; terminal one male, or male 

 at the base only, the rest female, but usually with a few lax male flowers 

 below. Glumes longer than the perigynia, lanceolate, cuspidate, entire ; 

 with a green keel and reddish-brown margins. Perigynia slightly spreading 

 when ripe, pale, stipitate, narrow elliptic, strongly nerved, narrowed into a 

 short stout beak ; beak minutely 2-toothed. Stigmas 3. 



Hab. — Graham Eiver and other tributaries of the Motueka rising in 

 Mount Arthur. Sources of the Takaka Eiver, ascending to 3,500 feet 

 altitude. 



Most nearly allied to C. vacillans, but readily distinguished by its larger 

 size, longer much stouter spikelets, longer glumes, and by the shape of the 

 perigynia, which want the tapering deeply bifid beak of that species. 



Aet. XLV. — Contributions to a Flora of the Nelson Provincial District. 

 By T. F. Cheeseman, F.L.S., Curator of the Auckland Museum. 

 \B,ead before the Auckland Institute, 3rd October, 1881.] 

 The importance of obtaining an accurate knowledge of the geographical 

 and altitudinal distribution of our native Flora, and of determining the 

 correlation which exists. between it and the geology, physical history, and 

 climate of the country, is doubtless sufficiently obvious. But it must be ad- 

 mitted that no correct inferences can be drawn, or sure generalizations 



