480 SUBANTARCTIC ISLANDS OF NEW ZEALAND. [Gramina. 



Leaves erect or slightly spreading, slender, smooth, flaccid, complicate, almost 

 setaceous ; sheaths rather lax, membranous, striate or grooved ; ligules short, mem- 

 branous, truncate, and irregularly erose. 



Panicle l-l|in, long, lax, ovate ; branches solitary, partly enclosed in the top- 

 most sheath, slender, smooth, glabrous, bearing 2-4 spikelets towards their tips. 



Spikelets ^-g- in. long, broadly oblong, 2-4 flowered, in age brown or purplish. 



Empty glumes nearly equal, about half as long as the flowering-glume immedi- 

 ately above, oblong, subacute, 3-nerved, glabrous. 



Flowering-glumes ovate-lanceolate, obtuse or subacute, prominently 5-nerved, 

 glabrous save for a scanty tuft of short slender hairs at the base of the glumes ; when 

 flowering, green with purplish border and scarious margin. 



Palea slightly shorter than the flowering-glume, linear-oblong, with minutely 

 ciliate nerves. 



Port Ross (a taller and more slender form) ; B. C. Aston ! Campbell Island ; 

 B. C. Aston ! 



The species, which I consider closely allied to P. pusilla, Berggren, is endemic as 

 above. 



Poa imbecilla, Forster. 



Poa imbecilla, Forster, Prodr., n. 499 (name only) ; Hook, f., Fl. Nov. Zel., 

 i, 306 ; Cheeseman, Man. N.Z. Flora, 913. Eragrostis imbecilla, Benth., 

 Fl. Austral., vii, 643. Poa breviglumis, Hook, f., Fl. Antarct. i, 101. 



Enderby Island ; B. C. Aston ! Campbell Island ; B. C. Aston ! 



The species also occurs in the North and South Islands of New Zealand, and 

 on Stewart and Chatham Islands. 



The specimens collected by Mr. Aston all appear to me to belong to this species. 



I consider Poa breviglumis, Hook, f., nothing more than a form of Poa imbecilla, 

 Forster. 



Atropis, Rupr. 



Distribution. — Temperate regions of both hemispheres, but most abundant in 

 the Northern. 



Many authors place the species here noticed in the genus Glyceria, Br. 



Atropis stricta, Hackel. 



Atropis stricta, Hackel, in Cheeseman's Man. N.Z. Flora, 914. Glyceria stricta, 

 Hook, f., Fl. Nov. Zel., i, 304 ; Fl. Tasm., ii, 123, t. 162b. 



Enderby Island, Auckland Group ; B. C. Aston ! 



The species occurs in littoral stations throughout the main islands of New Zea- 

 land, as well as in Tasmania and Australia. 



Atropis antipoda, sp. nov. 



Gramen caespitosum, foliosum, pallide viride, 12-20 cm. altum. 



Culmi stricti, f oliosi, glaberrimi, 2-nodosi, nodo superiore infra culmi medium 

 disposito. 



Folia culmum panicula tenus vaginantia et partem inferiorem amplectentia, 

 stricta, striata, glaberrima ; vaginae laxae, latiusculae, pallidae ; laminae apud 



