Order GRAMINEiE. 
Genus Zoysia. 
Sub-Order Andropogone^e. 
Genus IX.—ZOYSIA, Willdenow. 
Spikelets few (i—io), sessile, or shortly pedicelled, alternate, and imbricating on a stiff, erect, flattened 
flexuous rachis. Empty glume I, mucronate or awned. Flowering glume solitary, included. Palea 
membranous or none. Scales o. Stamens 3. Ovary oblong. Styles short, terminal. Stigmas long, 
feathery. Grain free. Distribution of Genus: INDIA, MAURITIUS, CHINA, AUS¬ 
TRALIA, NEW ZEALAND. Etymology: Named in honor of Baron Charles de Zoys, a 
Carniolian ecclesiastic, and collector of plants. 
1— ZOYSIA PUNGENS. 
{Plate XIII. A.) 
Rottboellia uniflora, A. Cunningham. 
Zoysia pungens, Willdenow. Hook, fil., FI. N.Z., I., 312; Handb. N.Z. Flora, I., 324. 
A small, creeping, rigid, usually littoral grass. Culms branched, 1—3 inches high, tufted, glabrous. 
Floiuers December—January. Perennial. Roots wiry, striking downwards from the prostrate rhizome. 
Leaves erect or spreading, filiform or subulate, involute, 1—4 inches long; sheaths tumid, grooved; 
ligule o. Spike —|-inch long, often reduced to a solitary spikelet. Spikelets 1—Lfnch long, shortly 
pedicelled. Empty glume ovoid, convolute, rigid, very coriaceous, glabrous, tip produced to a short 
awn, 7-nerved. Flowering glume solitary, sessile, included, membranous, convolute, i-nerved. Palea o. 
Stamens 3, large. Ovary sessile, glabrous. Grain long, narrow. Distribution of Species : THE 
SAME AS THE GENUS. 
A grass of considerable value on littoral swamps and dry flats near the sea. According to Kirk, 
“ It is found sometimes forming a compact turf on dry land, and affording a large supply of succulent 
herbage for horses, cattle, and sheep.” Its value, however, in such localities, if bulkier grasses would 
grow there, must be comparatively little, as, from its close-growing habit, it chokes out all other species. 
This may be observed near Tauranga, where, on the dry littoral flats above high water, the constant 
cropping of this grass by horses and cattle has formed so close a turf as to be impervious to all other 
