38 
AUSTRALASIAN ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION. 
much broader than the blades, 4-7 mm. diam., pale, thin and membranous, striate; 
blades narrow, 2-3 mm. across, complicate and appearing almost terete, quite smooth, 
faintly 10-12 ribbed on the outside, the ribs much more prominent on the inner face, 
which is usually furnished with short stiff hairs; apex of leaf rigid and pungent. Panicle 
contracted, narrow, erect, 6-10 cm. long; rhachis angular, finely scabrid on the angles; 
branches solitary, or sometimes a very short one at the base, close together or the 
lower a little remote; lateral branches very short. Spikelets 10-12 mm. long including 
the awns, 2-3 flowered; two outer glumes unequal, lanceolate, acuminate, from three- 
fourths to four-fifths the length of the entire spikelet; lower faintly three-nerved, 
upper distinctly three-nerved. Flowering glumes lanceolate, rounded on the back, 
faintly scaberulous, rather thin, distinctly five-nerved, narrowed into a short stiff 
awn. Palea shorter than the glume, narrow lanceolate, scaberulous on the keel. Grain 
narrow-obovoid; hilum long, linear. 
Originally discovered in Macquarie Island by Dr. Scott. His specimens were 
much too immature for correct identification, but were provisionally referred to 
F. duriuscula, with which it has no affinity. In 1894 it was again collected by A. 
Hamilton, but the material which he brought back consisted only of two very 
indifferent examples. These were described by T. Kirk as a new species under the 
name of Festuca contracta. Fortunately H. Hamilton was able to collect a fair number 
of specimens. From an examination of these it became evident that the plant was 
either very closely allied to the Fuegian and Kerguelen Festuca erecta D’Urv., or 
positively identical with it. There being no authenticated specimens of F. erecta in 
New Zealand, I applied to Dr. Stapf, of the Kew Herbarium, with the view of having 
a comparison made. This he has kindly done, with the result of proving that the 
Macquarie Island plant is identical with F. erecta. 
Three other plants —Ranunculus biternatus, Accena adscendens , and Azcyrella 
Selago —agree with Festuca erecta in being found in Fuegia, Kerguelen, and Macquarie 
Island, and in not extending to the New Zealand Subantarctic Islands. Their existence 
in Macquarie Island is a most remarkable fact, and can only be explained as an 
instance of comparatively recent migration through the agency of oceanic birds, 
carried before the continuous westerly winds. 
As no recent description of Festuca erecta has been published, I have prepared 
the preceding one for this memoir. 
FILICES. 
Lomaria penna-marina Trev.. 
Lomaria penna-marina Trev. in Att. Inst. Yen. XIV (1869), p. 570; Cheesem. Sub- 
antarct. Islands of N.Z. II (1909), p. 439. Polypodium penna-marina Poir. Encycl. 
V (1804), p. 529. Stegania alpina R.Br. Prodr. (1810), p. 152. Lomaria cdpina 
