XII. GRAMINEiE. 
331 
15. ARUNDO, Linn. 
Tall, stout, leafy grasses. Leaves flat or involute. Panicles very large, 
effuse, with excessively numerous, much divided branches, usually nodding to 
one side. — Spikelets excessively numerous, white, very thin and membranous, 
silky or shining, 1-5 -flowered. Empty glumes nearly equal, very long, lan- 
ceolate, acuminate; flowering glumes pedicelled, long, lanceolate, very silky, 
entire or 2 -fid at the tip ; the awn straight or twisted. Pale short. Scales 
2, fleshy. Stamens 3. Grain free, long, terete. 
Noble grasses, found in most tropical and temperate countries, especially in or near water. 
1. A. conspicua, Font. ; — FI. N. Z. i. 299. Culms 3-8 ft. high, 
growing in dense tussocks, from which rise a profusion of long curving leaves, 
and erect slender culms, with large white panicles. Leaves coriaceous, nar- 
row, smooth or scabrid. Panicle 1-2 ft. long, branches drooping. Spikelets 
1-3-flowered, white, pedicels capillary. Empty glumes in. long ; flowering- 
half as long, surrounded with long silky hairs, acuminate, terminated by the 
slightly twisted, slender included awn. — A. australis, A. Rich. ; A. australis 
and A. conspicua, A. Cunn. ; ? A. Ka/cao, Steud. ; Achiatherum conspicuum, 
Palisot; Gyneriurn (?) Zelandicum, Steud.; Calamagrostis conspicua, Gmel. ; 
? Agrostis procera, A. Rich. 
Northern and Middle Islands: abundant in moist places. Banks and Solander, etc.; 
as far south as Otago, Lindsay. The largest New Zealand Grass, and confined to these 
islands. Culms used for thatching and lining houses with reedwork. 
Cynodon Dactylon, Linn. An excessively common, small, tropical and temperate grass, 
much used for fodder in India (Doa'b Grass), is introduced into New Zealand; it creeps ex- 
tensively, has involute leaves, digitate strict branches of the panicle ; spikelets small, sessile, 
in 2 rows on one side of the branches, 1-flowered, empty glumes 2 keeled, flowering one 
pilose, thinner and broader ; pale with a bristle at its base. 
Eleusine indica, Gsertner, a very common tropical Grass, has been gathered near Auck- 
land ; it has the habit and inflorescence of Cynodon, but is larger and coarser, the glumes 
obtuse, and grain wrinkled. 
16. DANTHONIA, Decandolle. 
Tufted, usually harsh, rigid grasses. Leaves flat or involute. Panicles 
effuse or contracted. — Spikelets pedicelled, rather large, coriaceous or scarious, 
2- or many-flowered (rarely 1-flowered). Empty glumes unequal or nearly 
equal, membranous, keeled, awnless ; flowering 2 or more, pedicelled, silky or 
furnished with pencils of hairs on the sides, convex, broadly 2-fid, the divi- 
sions subulate cuspidate or awned; dorsal awn from between the divisions, 
long, slender or stout, filiform or flat and twisted at the base. Pale 2-fid. 
Scales glabrous or pilose. Stamens 3. Ovary stipitate, glabrous. Grain 
free. 
A large South African, Australian, Tasmanian, and New Zealand genus, also found in the 
south of Europe. The species are very difficult of discrimination : when the flowering-glumes 
are reduced to two, the species may be confounded with Trisetum ; and if to one, with 
Agrostis, but for the more deeply 2-cuspidate flowering-glume; from Arundo it is dis- 
tinguished chiefly by habit, and the more deeply 2-fid flowering-glume ; the long silky hairs 
on the sides of the flowering-glume generally distinguish it from all its allies. 
