This very graceful showy grass is considered of little value in British agriculture, being deficient in 
nutriment, and not relished by any kind of stock. Its most favourite habitats are wet marshy land, and 
it can only be tolerated for the shelter it affords to smaller and less hardy species. It is seldom eaten 
by stock after the seed is shed, and, as regards its nutrient qualities, it will be seen from the Woburn 
experiments that, at the time of the seed ripening, it yielded at the rate of 10,209 lb. of green produce 
per acre, which lost in drying 6891 lb., and afforded of nutritive matter only 3191b. Its cultivation 
therefore cannot be recommended, and it will probably disappear wherever the land is drained. Johnson, 
in his work on British grasses, says, of the tendency of this grass to form tussacs, “ In the economy 
of nature, these tufts, so unsightly and disfiguring to the cultivated landscape, are valuable by con¬ 
tributing to ,elevate and solidify low lands liable to be overflowed by rivers, and, where they occur on hill 
and mountain slopes, by binding the spongy soil and preventing the slips which would leave them bare. 
Distribution in New Zealand : NORTH AND MIDDLE ISLAND (abudant). 
Reference to Plate XXXVII.: Fig. 1. Plant. 2. Spikelet. 3. Floret. 4, 4. Nervation of 
empty glumes. 5. Nervation of flowering glume. 6. Nervation of Palea. 7. Scale. 8. Grain, 
natural size. 8\ Grain enlarged. 
