322 
XII. GKAMINEiK. 
[. Hierochloe . 
2. H. alpina, Rcem. and Schultes. — II. borealis, FI. N. Z. i. 300 ; FI. 
Tasm. ii. 108, not R. and S. Culms tufted, 1-2 ft. high, slender, soft and 
smooth. Leaves short, 4-8 in. long, strict, quite smooth, flat. Panicle 
ovate, 2-3 in. long, branches few, spreading, capillary. Spikelets i in. long 
and broad, shining. Empty glumes short, acute, 3-nerved ; flowering pubes- 
cent ; margins silky with long hairs ; awn variable in length and position, 
usually inserted above the middle and exserted. 
Northern Island: top9 of the Ruahine mountains, Colenso. Middle Island: Nelson 
mountains, Munro , Travers; Hopkins’ river, alt. 2-3500 ft., Haast ; Otago, lake district. 
Hector and Buchanan. Very tall and stout; also a native of the Tasmanian mountains, 
and of northern and alpine Europe, Asia, and North America. 
3. H. Brunonis, Hoolc. f. ; — FI. Antarct. i. 93. t. 52. Yery similar to 
JT. redolens, but the empty glumes are much larger, twice as long as the 
flowering, -} in. long, and the flowering have 2-fid acute tips, with awns as 
long as the glume between the lobes. 
Lord Auckland’s group : tufts on the hills, J. D. H. 
5. SPINIFEX, Linn. 
Yery coarse, rambling, much branched, rigid, spinous, bushy, littoral 
grasses, glabrous or woolly. Leaves long, rigid, wiry, involute. Inflorescence 
dioecious. — Male spikelets spiked on rigid peduncles which are collected into 
umbels, with sheathing spathaceous leaves at their bases, 1- or 2-flowered; 
empty glumes 3, large ; flowering glume membranous. Stamens 3 ; anthers 
very long. Female spikelets solitary or few in the sheathing bases of very 
long pungent leaves, which are extremely numerous and collected into very 
large globose masses, I - or 2-flowered, 3 empty glumes as in the male, but larger, 
flowering glume coriaceous. Scales 2, fleshy. Grain free within the glume 
and pale. 
A genus of two or three littoral plants, natives of the coasts of Tasmania and Australia, 
(where it is said to impede travelling ou the western side in some places), and in India and 
China. 
1. S. hlrsutus, Labill. FI. Nov. Holl. ii. 230, 231; — FI. N. Z. i. 292. 
A strong-growing, silky or woolly grass ; culms stout, knotted, creeping. 
Leaves 1-1 5 ft. long, very coriaceous ; lower sheaths shining ; upper and back 
of leaf silky or villous. Male spikes with the rachis 1-3 in. long, numerous, 
peduncled, silky. Spikelet very shortly pedicelled, \ in. long. Glumes acute. 
Female spikelet at the membranous bases of leaves which terminate in rigid, 
slender spines 3-5 in. long. Glumes larger than the male; outer awned. — 
Ixalum inerme, Forst. 
Northern Island : common on the coasts. Banks and Solander. Middle Island: 
Canterbury, Travers. A common Australian and Tasmanian, Indian and Pacific Island 
Grass. 
6. PASPALUM, Linn. 
Tufted or creeping grasses, of various habit. Leaves flat or involute.— 
Spikelets in the New Zealand species ovoid, much compressed, arranged in 
two rows on one side of a flat rachis, 1-flowered, short, acute or obtuse, 
without a callus at the base. Empty glumes 2 or 3, unequal, lower usually 
very small ; flowering concave, hardening and enclosing the pale and grain ; 
