136 GRAMINEAE. [ /mperata. 
1. IMPERATA Cyr. 
Tall erect perennial grasses. Leaves long. fPanicles long, terminal, 
densely spiciform or narrow-thyrsiform, silky-silvery. Spikelets all similar, 
numerous, densely clothed with long silky hairs, usually arranged in pairs 
on the continuous branches of the panicle, one sessile or almost so, the 
other distinctly stalked, all 1-flowered. Empty glumes 3, subequal, narrow, 
membranous, awnless, 3-9-nerved, the 2 outer clothed with long hairs. 
Flowering glume usually much smaller, hyaline. Palea small, broad, 
hyaline, nerveless. Lodicules wanting. Stamens 1 or 2. Stigma long, 
exserted from the tip of the spikelet. Grain oblong, with an embryo half 
its length or more. 
A genus of about 6 species, found in the tropical or warm temperate regions of 
both hemispheres. One of the New Zealand species is very widely diffused, the other 
is endemic in the Kermadec Islands. 
Panicle densely spiciform, cylindric, obtuse, shining. Stamens 2.. 1. 1. arundinacea. 
Panicle not so dense, narrow-lanceolate, acuminate, not shining. 
Stamen 1 a 4. 3 A uf .. 2. I. Cheesemanit. 
TT. ceed rw ica (L..) Roan ann . Vow KA. (Rett) Deuce 
1. aruhdinacea Cyr. Pl. Rar. Te. ii (1792) 26, t. 11; var. Koenigti 
a ox Py 1 a SA poe Bae aranrt ol a hratis. ot 
1Alb 
12% 
Imperata arundinacea, var. Koenigii, Benth. 
peace eieatanes “> Reinet 
not native to N ttre see Ts Naw wae 
vol. 57, p. 65. (Ckn. & Allan). 
or the uppermost nerveless.” Wlowerlng yiunie gy ae tog we ~~ py 
empty glume, ovate, acute, glabrous, hyaline, nerveless. Palea about i as 
long as the glume, quadrate, truncate, nerveless. Stamens 2. Stigmas 
long, purple-—Hack. in D.C. Monog. Phan. vi, 94; Stapf. in Fl. Capen. vu 
(1898) 321. 
Norra Istanp : Auckland—Near Kaitaia, R. H. Matthews! 
Perhaps introduced only, but it is one of those species which might be expected 
to be indigenous in the extreme north of the Dominion, and I have consequently given 
it the benefit of' the doubt. The species, in some of its forms, is found in all warm 
countries ; var. Koenigii is common throughout Africa, and in Australia and Tasmania, 
stretching northwards to India, China, and Japan. 
2. I. Cheesemanii Hack. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxxv (1903) 378.— 
Perennial, innovation-shoots extravaginal. Culms 1-3 ft. high, simple, 
stout, erect, glabrous, 3-noded. Leaves numerous, rather shorter than the 
culms; sheaths loose, bearded at the mouth but otherwise glabrous, the 
uppermost sheathing the base of the panicle, the lowest scale-like ; ligules 
short, truncate, membranous; laminae linear from a narrow base, acute 
or acuminate, 4-2 in. broad, flat, nerved, glabrous ; margins scabrid above. 
Panicle narrow-lanceolate, gradually narrowed upwards into an acute 
point, 5-10in. long, 3-1} in. broad, dense but not so much so as in 
I. arundinacea, greyish-white with long soft hairs that conceal the glumes, 
not shining; branches numerous, erecto-patent, flexuose, simple or with 
short branchlets in the lower half, pedicels clavate above. Spikelets about 
