36 
AUSTRALASIAN ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION. 
around which, according to A. Hamilton (see his paper in Trans. X.Z. Inst. XXVII, 
pp. 564-568), “ is usually a muddy pool more or less deep, into every one of which you 
plunge with unerring certainty when trying to cross the belt of tussock-grass.” Later 
on he says : “ This noble grass forms huge tussocks, especially in the damper portions, 
where the drainage and the liquid manure from the penguin rookeries assist its growth. 
In such places one can walk between the columns with the plant waving far overhead.” 
Poa foliosa also occupies no small part of the hillsides, as the following quotation 
from the “ Home of the Blizzard ” will prove :—“ The hillsides are deeply ravined, and 
the slopes covered with a dense growth of tussock, which renders progress uncertain 
and laborious” (vol. 2, p. 172). Dr. Scott also speaks of the “ long stretches of 
yellowish tussock, with occasional great patches of the bright green Stilbocarpa polaris, 
or of the peculiar sage green Pleurophyllum .” Further quotations could be given, but 
it is abundantly evident that it is the dominating plant of the island. 
Outside Macquarie Island, Poa foliosa is commonly found on all the other 
islands to the south of New Zealand proper. It is also a close relative of the Kerguelen 
Island P. Cookii and the Fuegian and Falkland Island P. flabellata Hook. f. ( Dactylis 
cesspit os a Forst.). 
Poa Hamiltoni T. Kirk. 
Poa Hamiltoni T. Kirk in Trans. N.Z. Inst. XXVII (1894), p. 353; Cheesem. Man. N.Z. 
FI. (1906), p. 1156; Petrie in Subantarct. Islands of N.Z. II (1909), p. 477. 
Macquarie Island :—On rocks near the sea, usually fringing the Poa foliosa 
formation. A. Hamilton (1894); H. Hamilton (1912-1913). 
Perennial, densely tufted, 1-5 dm. high. Culms shorter than the leaves, erect, stout, 
sometimes 5 cm. diam. below, compressed, leafy almost up to the base of the panicle. 
Leaves numerous, subdistichous, lower much reduced in size and sheathing 
the culm, gradually passing into the upper, which usually far overtop the panicle, 
4- 7 mm. diam. at the base, from thence gradually tapering into a long acuminate point, 
flat, coriaceous, many-striate, smooth and glabrous, not scabrid ; ligules large, broad, 
ovate, membranous, deeply and irregularly laciniate; sheaths long, compressed, thin 
and rather membranous, regularly striate. Panicle linear-oblong or linear-obovate, 
sometimes almost clavate, dense and contracted, rarely sub-lobed towards the base, 
5- 9 cm. long, DO to 13 cm. broad, usually strict and erect; branches close set, rarely 
more than 2 cm. long. Spikelets rather large, compressed, 5-7 mm. long, 2-4 flowered; 
lower flower almost sessile, upper pedicelled. Outer glumes unequal, but not 
remarkably so, ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, 3-nerved; flowering glumes lanceolate or 
ovate-lanceolate, acuminate or almost awned, incurved at the tip, keeled, 5-nerved, 
scabrid on the keel and nerves, shortly hairy on the sides towards the base, but not 
webbed. Palea linear-oblong, bifid at the tip, ciliate on the margins and keels, about 
one-third shorter than the glume. Lodicules broad-ovate, acute. Anthers large, 
narrow-linear, 3 mm. long. 
