side of the sheath. Pantile erect, slender, open or contracted, 2—12-inches long, branches short. 
Spikelets ^—^-inch long, shining white, or pale green, 3—4-flowered. Empty glumes unequal, 3-nerved. 
Flowering glumes deeply 2-fid, 3-nerved, with silky hairs at base ; awn recurved, as long as or longer 
than the glume. Palea 4-toothed and lacerate at top, 2-nerved. Distribution of Species : NEW 
ZEALAND. 
This valuable grass is distributed abundantly in both Islands, although it may be said to attain its 
1 
maximum of growth in the South, where it becomes an important element in the pasture. It varies 
much in size and amount of contraction in the panicle, from the weak delicate form of the Tararua 
Mountain, Wellington, at 5000 feet altitude, to the large robust form from the Clutha or Mataura 
Valleys, but they all possess the same beautiful lustre which attracts notice as an ornamental plant. It 
is only in the South Island where it attains a size which would entitle it to be considered as a fodder 
plant, and it might be often judiciously mixed with Lolium perenne for this purpose. One strong 
argument in favour of the cultivation of indigenous grasses is their great vitality, which may sometimes 
be observed near homesteads in the South, where, after enclosed paddocks having been carefully 
ploughed and sown with some popular exotic grass, such as Lolium perenne , it will be found that 
the natural growth of indigenous species, such as the present, has filled the ditches, and covered the 
waste places along the fences with a better and more permanent crop than that cultivated in the 
adjoining paddocks, and which it ultimately displaces. Distribution in New Zealand : NORTH 
AND SOUTPI ISLAND (abundant). 
Reference to Plate XXXIX.: Fig. 1, i'. Plant, showing open and contracted panicles. 2. Spike- 
let. 3. Floret. 4, 4. Nervation of empty glumes. 5. Nervation of flowering glume. 6. Nervation 
of Palea. 7. Scale. 8. Ovary, styles, and stigmas. 
