Order GRAMINE/E. 
Genus Triticum. 
Sub-Order Hordeacea:. 
2.—TRITICUM SCABRUM. 
BLUE WHEAT GRASS. 
(Plate L VII.) 
Festuca scabra, Labill. PI. Nov. Holl., I., 22, t. 26. 
Triticum scabrum, R. Brown. Prod. 178, Hook, fil., FI. Tasm., II., 128. 
Agropyrum scabrum, Beauv, Bentham. FI. Austral., VII., 665. 
Triticum scabrum, R. Brown. Hook, fil., FI. N.Z., I., 311. 
Triticum scabrum, R. Brown. Hook, fil., Handb. N.Z. FI., I., 34 2 - 
A large tufted blueish-green grass Mowers December—March. Annual or perennial. Culms erect, 
prostrate at the base, 3—18 inches high, smooth, striated. Leaves 2—8 inches long, flat or involute, 
smooth or scabrid, sheathing leaves long, striate; ligule o. Spike 2—6 inches long. Spikelets 2—8, 
with the awn i-|—2^ inches long, 6—10-flowered, erect, alternate, scabrid. Empty glumes unequal, 
5-nerved, much smaller than the flowering. Flowering glume tapering into a long awn, 3—5 times as 
long as the glume, 5-nerved; aivn flexuose, straight or curved. Palea obtuse, 2-nerved. Scale 
oblique, or unequally bifid, ciliate. Ovary crowned on the top with a mass of glutinous hairs, which 
scales off from the grain. Styles connected below. Distribution op Species: AUSTRALIA, 
TASMANIA, NEW ZEALAND. 
An abundant grass in both Islands, from sea-level to 3000 feet altitude. It varies much in size 
and character, being smaller and more glabrous near the sea, and varying much in the size of the spikelets 
in inland districts. The species of Triticum are considered as annuals in New Zealand, but this must 
be accepted with reservation, as it is doubtful if a true annual grass exists in the Islands, the cool and 
moist climate of many inland localities enabling grasses to maintain a continued growth without that 
amount of heat-forcing which is, at all times, necessary to ripen seed the first year, for there certainly 
exists an inherent tendency in many grasses to flower and seed at an early stage of their growth, and 
before stoles are thrown out from the roots. In such cases the plant is exhausted and dies, and may 
be considered as an annual, although the species may be continued on the same ground from shaken 
seed. This is undoubtedly the theory of certain supposed perennial grasses, such as Lolium perenne , 
proving sometimes annual; and such grasses can only be secured perennial by cutting or grazing down 
the flowering stems for one or more years, till each seedling plant has thrown out numerous stoles from 
the root before ripening any seed, by which time a thick close sward has been formed. Some grasses, 
