Order GRAMINEiE. 
Genus Trisetum. 
Sub-Order Avenacese. 
2—TRISETUM SUBSPICATUM. 
SPIKED OAT GRASS. 
[Plate XL. A.) 
Trisetum subspicatum, Beauv. Hook, fil., Flora Antarct, T., 97. 
Trisetum subspicatum, Palisot. Hook, fil., Handb. N.Z., Flora, I., 335. 
A small densely-tufted alpine grass, found from 500—5000 feet altitude. Flowers January. Culms 
4—18-inches high. Leaves flat, as long as or shorter than the culms, downy; ligule short, rounded 
at top, lacerate. Panicle dense, subcylindric, spiciform, 1—4-inches long. Spihelets shortly pedicelled, 
imbricate, ^—J-inch long, 2—3-flowered, pale greenish white, shining. Empty glumes shorter than the 
spikelet, unequal, very acute or cuspidate, 3-nerved. Flowering glumes 2, cuspidate, 5-nerved, awn 
dorsal, recurved, as long as or longer than the glume, inserted below the 2-cuspidate tip, pedicel tufted 
with hairs. Palea bifid, 2-nerved. Distribution of Species : ARCTIC EUROPE, ASIA, 
AMERICA, AND ALPS OF THE SAME CONTINENTS ; SOUTH AMERICA, FUEGIA, 
AUSTRALIA, TASMANIA; AUCKLAND, CAMPBELL, AND CHATHAM ISLANDS; 
NEW ZEALAND. 
This grass is apparently confined to the South Island, where even it is at present but little known. 
Hooker says of it in his Antarctic Flora, “ Few grasses have so wide a range as this, nor am I acquainted 
with any other Arctic species which is equally an inhabitant of the opposite polar regions. In Europe 
it is found at a very great elevation on the Alps and Pyrenees, as also in Lapland. In Asia it frequents 
*the Altai Range, the northern parts of Siberia and Kamschatka, from whence it crosses to Kotzebue’s 
Sound, and is apparently more generally distributed through Arctic America than in the Old World, 
from the utmost limits of polar vegetation in Melville Island, throughout Greenland and the Arctic 
Islands, the Arctic sea-coast, Labrador, Canada, and the Rocky Mountains.” It seems improbable that 
a grass of such vitality and adaptation could be otherwise than valuable, and so no doubt it will prove 
to be when stockowners are enabled to distinguish it from other species. Distribution in New 
Zealand: SOUTH ISLAND: LAKE GUYON DISTRICT, NELSON (5000 feet)—H. H. 
Travers; MARLBOROUGH—Kirk; UPPER AWATERE VALLEY, MARLBOROUH— 
Sinclair; HOPKINS RIVER, CANTERBURY (2500 feet)—Haast; OTAGO LAKE 
DISTRICT (3000 feet)—Hector and Buchanan ; MOUNT St. BATHANS, OTAGO (5000 feet) 
—W. Petrie; WESTERN SLOPES OF MOUNT COOK (5000 feet)—A. McKay. 
Reference to Plate XL. A.: Fig. 1. Plant. 2. Spikelet. 3. Floret. 4, 4. Nervation of empty 
glumes. 5. Nervation of flowering glume. 6. Nervation of Palea. 7. Scale. 
