94 NATIVE FLOWERS OF VICTORIA. 
CHAPTER XIII. 
Grasses and Ferns. 
N O discussion on the native plants of any country 
would he complete without some remarks on 
the grasses and ferns. Taking the grasses 
first, there are very few species that can strictly be 
called ornamental. Most of our grasses are useful, 
and indeed, highly nutritious for stock feed. 
Some grasses have other qualities of note. There 
is the scented grass, Tetrarrhena juncea, which is 
very fragrant, and which in climbing with its slight 
wiry stems among the trees or shrubs of Gippsland, 
often reaches the height of fifteen or twenty feet or 
more. 
Of the reed grasses of our watercourses, Arundo 
Phragmites, which is a near relation of the Danubian 
or Southern European common bamboo, Arundo 
donax, and which ornaments the banks of our streams 
with its brown feathery plumes at Easter time, is a 
tall decorative species. Poa dives, a tall mountainous 
and forest grass, of strong and vigorous habit, is also 
worthy of note. A pretty small-headed grass is 
Erianthus fulvus, “ Brown top,” with its tall slender 
stems, crowned with a golden-brown tuft. It is an 
ornament for any garden, and is also nutritious for 
stock. 
A dainty form, restricted here mainly to the Mallee, 
but also found in the Werribee Gorge, is Stipa 
elegantissima, the “ Feather Spear Grass.” The 
