Order GRAMINEZE. 
Genus Paspalum. 
Sub-Order Panice^e. 
2—PASPALUM DISTICHUM. 
SEA-SIDE MILLET. 
(Plate X. B.) 
Paspalum littorale, Brown. t 
Paspalum distichum, Burmann. FI. N.Z., I., 291. Handb. N.Z. Flora, L, 323. 
A creeping, glabrous, littoral grass. Flowers December—February. Perennial. Culms branched, 
compressed, ascending; 4—10 inches high, covered with leaf-sheaths to the top. Leaves distichous, 
strict, involute ; ligule short, broad, rounded at top; mouth of sheath with a tuft of silky hairs on each 
side. Spikes in pairs, 1 inch long; rachis narrow. Spikelets loosely imbricate, glabrous, pedicelled, 
ovate, acute, -^-inch long. Empty glumes 2, membranous, 5-nerved. Flowering glum,e slightly concave, 
faintly 3-nerved. Palea flat, faintly 2-nerved. Scales 2, fleshy, truncate. Styles long. Stigmas 
feathery, shorter than the style. Stamens 3. Grain ovate, flat, thin, free within the hardened glume. 
Distribution of Species : NEW ZEALAND, also a common Tropical and Sub-Tropical Grass. 
This is a grass of considerable value, and is commonly found on littoral swamp land, and wet 
bottoms among sand-hills on the coast-line of Auckland and Islands on the East Coast—localities 
where superior grasses are seldom found. It is also common in similar situations in Australia, where, 
according to Mr. Bacchus, “ its nutrient properties are considerable, horses and cattle eating it readily.” 
From the fact that this grass supplies valuable food for stock in localities where species of value are 
never abundantly found, is obtained an argument in favour of its introduction to similar places in other 
parts of New Zealand, where the climate would permit its growth. At the proper season seed could, no 
doubt, be collected in sufficient quantity to sow down a few square yards of fenced ground adapted for 
the purpose, as an experiment, and, if this should prove a failure, inoculation by plants is always 
possible with grasses which have creeping roots, as in this species. 
There are also exotic species of this Genus of great value, which might be introduced with much 
probability of success in the swamps of the Waikato, or Isthmus of Auckland;—orie of these (quoting 
from “Lindley’s Vegetable Kingdom,” p. 113), is “Paspalum exile , a species common on the West Coast 
of Africa, and from which a fine-grained corn is gathered and sold there under the name of Fundi. ’ 
This species would, in addition to improving the pasture, furnish a large food-supply for native 
wild fowl and introduced game birds, the millets being often sown in copses in England for that 
purpose. Distribution in New Zealand : NORTH ISLAND : BAY OF ISLANDS— 
Cunningham; AUCKLAND—Sinclair; WAIKATO and GREAT BARRIER ISLAND—Kirk; 
TITIRANGI—Cheeseman; KAWAU—Buchanan. 
/ 
Reference to Plate X. B: Fig. 1. Plant. 2, 2'. Spikelet open and closed. 3. Palea with feathery 
stigmas and stamens. 4. Nervation of empty glumes. 3 - Nervation of flowering glume. 6. Nervation 
of Palea. 7. Ovary with feathery stigmas and stamens. 8. Scale. 9, 9". Grain, front and side views. 
