Order GRAMINEtE. 
Genus Danthonia. 
Sub-Order Avenace^. 
2.—DANTHONIA OVATA, x.s. 
{Plate XXIX. 2.) 
A small sub-alpine tussac grass, found at 4000 feet altitude. Flowers January. Culms il|- —2-feet 
high, pilose below. Leaves 10—12-inches long, narrow, involute, pilose; ligule o, or with a narrow line 
of short hairs round the mouth of sheath, and a small tuft of long hairs on each side. Panicle 
3—4-inches long, erect, ovate; branches alternate, 1 — 1 ^-inches long. Spikelets alternate on the 
branches, -|-inch long, 4—6-flowered, 2—4 spikelets on each branch. Empty glumes nearly equal, 
3-nerved. Flowering glume deeply 2-fid with lateral awns, 9-nerved, glabrous, fringed on margins and 
back with pencils of hairs, central awn straight, not flattened or twisted at the base, pedicel tufted with 
long hairs. Palea bifid on top, and with long straggling hairs on the margins. Scales linear-oblong, 
acute, crowned with long cilia. Distribution of Species: NEW ZEALAND. 
v, 
This is a grass of apparently limited distribution, and of which little is known, but, as the 
mountainous parts of Southland, where it was discovered, have never been botanically explored, it may 
probably yet be found abundantly there. The fringed flowering glumes pronounces its affinity to the 
larger tussac grasses, and the straight subulate awn more particularly to D. Cunninghamii, of which it 
might be considered as only a variety but for the much larger spikelets and long lateral awns of the 
flowering glume; neither has any variation of that species been seen with a similar panicle, or such 
short leaves. The value of this grass in pasture is not known, but at the time of flowering it is no 
doubt eaten by sheep, who spare nothing at these high altitudes during the summer season. 
Distribution in New Zealand: SOUTH ISLAND: MOUNT EGLINTON, SOUTH¬ 
LAND— J. Morton. 
Reference to Plate XXIX. 2 : 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. Ovary, 
pistils, and stigmas. 
