130 



Baron von Mueller, quoting Stirling, remarks that it is a rough 

 fodder-grass, best utilised for laying dry and moist meadows, and 

 that it affords a fair pasturage if periodically burnt down. This 

 opinion of its value, as far as Australia is concerned, is probably the 

 correct one ; but as so few observations have been recorded in regard 

 to it in Australia, perhaps our pastoralists on and near the Australian 

 Alps will send notes on the grass now that attention has been drawn 

 to it. It is true the same species is found in Europe, but it is quite 

 possible that our Australian plants differ in forage value from those 

 of the Northern Hemisphere. Most of my specimens have been 

 nipped by grazing animals. 



Other uses. — Door-mats are sometimes made of the hay by cottagers 

 in Scotland. 



I wish to draw attention to the highly ornamental character of this 

 grass when in flower. Its spikelets are of a beautiful silvery gray, and 

 are almost of metallic lustre. They vary somewhat in size and tint, 

 and the panicles are well worthy of being gathered for decorative 

 purposes. 



Habitat and range. — This grass is rather common on the Australian 

 Alps at an elevation of 5,000 to 6,000 feet. It is found in damp, cold 

 localities in the southern ranges, but as its precise northern limit in 

 this colony is not ascertained, correspondence on the subject is invited. 

 It is very common in Tasmania, and is also found in Victoria and South 

 Australia. Outside Australia, it is found in Europe, Asia and America, 

 also in New Zealand and Fuegia, but never in warm climates. 



Reference to plate. — A. Spikelet showing fine dorsal awn attached below the middle of 

 the flowering glumes, one flowering glume close above the empty glumes and the other 

 raised on a stipes. Flowering glumes truncate and four-toothed. 



60. TRISETUM. 



Spikelets two- rarely three-flowered, in a narrow and dense or loose 

 panicle, the rhachis of the spikelet articulate, hairy and more or less 

 produced between the flowering glumes and beyond the upper one as 

 a hairy bristle, or bearing a terminal empty glume or male flower. 



Outer empty glumes unequal, acute, keeled, thinly scarious on the 

 sides. 



Flowering glumes more hyaline, keeled, acute or shortly two-fid, 

 with a dorsal awn attached above the middle, usually twisted at the 

 base and bent in the middle. 



Palea prominently two-nerved, usually two-toothed. 



Styles distinct, stigmatic from near the base. 



Grain glabrous, enclosed in the glume and palea but free from them. 



Seed not furrowed. 



1. Trisetum subspicatum, Beauv. 



'- Botwiical name. Trisetum — Latin, tres three, seta a bristle, the 

 " three bristles" being the two-fid flowering glume with two sharp 



