142 GRAMINEAE. [Cenchrus. 
1. C. ealyeulatus Cav. Ic. v (1791-1901 39, t. 463-—Culms tufted, tall, 
stout, glabrous, 2-4 ft. high or more. Leaves long, linear-lanceolate, acumi- 
nate, 4-2 in. broad, flat, glabrous, scaberulous on the margins and veins 
above; sheaths long, rather lax; ligule split into numerous fine erect bristles. 
Spike 5-10 in. long by Jin. broad, stout, dense ; rhachis angular, pubescent. 
Involucres about 4 in. long, sessile or very shortly pedicelled, spreading or 
at length deflexed, broadly ovoid ; inner bristles 8-12, connate at the base, 
compressed, unequal in length, sometimes one much longer than the rest, 
lower 2 plumose with soft spreading hairs, upper 4 rough and scabrous ; 
outer bristles numerous, much shorter, spreading, subulate, scabrous through- 
out. Spikelets 1 or 2 within the involucres; outer empty glume half the 
length of the 2nd, ovate, acute, l-nerved; 2nd rather shorter and broader 
than the 3rd, 3-nerved; 3rd with a palea and male flower, 5—7-nerved ; 
4th or flowering glume rather shorter and narrower, firmer in texture— 
Cheesem. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xx (1888) 175; Man. N.Z. Fl. (1906) 849. 
C. anomoplexis Lab. Sert. Austr. Caled. (1824—25) 14, t. 19. 
KERMADEC ISLANDS: Sandy soil on the north side of Sunday Island, not common, 
T. F.C., W. R. B. Oliver! Also a native of New Caledonia and others of the Pacific 
islands. 
8. SPINIFEX Linn. 1777 Moauwk- 
Usually wide-creeping hard and stout branching grasses. Leaves long, 
involute, silky. Inflorescence dioecious. Male spikelets 2-flowered, sessile 
or shortly pedicelled, articulate on long erect spikes. which are arranged in 
umbels surrounded by leafy spathaceous bracts. Glumes 4, all membranous, 
awnless: 2 lowest empty; 3rd and 4th each with a palea and 3 stamens. 
Female spikelets 1- or rarely 2-flowered, numerous, each one solitary at the 
base of long rigid pungent stellately spreading spines, surrounded by short 
lanceolate bracts, the whole inflorescence forming a large globose head. 
Glumes 4, subequal, narrow; 2 lowest empty; 3rd with a palea and some- 
times with a rudimentary male flower; 4th with a female flower. Lodicules 
2, large. Styles long, free ; stigmas plumose. Grain free within the hardened 
flowering glume and palea. 
A small genus of 4 species, 3 of which are found in Australia, one of them extending 
to New Zealand and New Caledonia, the fourth stretching from Ceylon and India to 
Java, China, and Japan. 
1. S. hirsutus Labill. Pl. Nov. Holl. ii (1806) 81, t. 230, 231.—Stems 
creeping and rooting, branched, often many feet long, stout, knotted, silky 
or woolly. Leaves 1-2 ft. long, coriaceous, flexuous, densely clothed with 
sott silky hairs, margins strongly involute ; sheaths long, broad, the inner 
smooth and shining; ligules split into a dense brush of erect silky hairs. 
Male spikes numerous, 2-4 in. long, arranged in a terminal umbel, with or 
without a cluster of 2-3 placed lower down the culm. Spikelets about 
gin. long. Glumes silky, 5-7-nerved. Female heads large, globose, 6—12 in. 
diam.; spines very numerous, spreading all round, slender, subulate, 
pungent-pointed. Spikelets very narrow, acute or acuminate, Jin. long. 
Glumes 7—9-nerved.—Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i (1853) 292; ‘Handb. N.Z. Fl. 
(1864) 322; Benth. Fl. Austral. vii (1878) 503; Buch. N.Z. Grasses (1879) 
503 ; Cheesem. Man. N.Z. Fl. (1906) 850; Cockayne Veg. N.Z. (1921) t. 6. 
S. sericeus R. Br. Prodr. (1810) 198; A. Rich. Fl. Nouv. Zel. (1832) 122 ; 
A, Cunn. Precur. (1836) n. 268; Raoul Choix (1846) 40. Ixalum inerme 
Forst. f. Prodr. (1786) n. 564, ERO cat 
G.inarmcs Bes. em Wet. HNE.(. 292 
alee see Blade Traw, &.§.S.A. 1933 219G8 
ro 
ee, TVW ¥ 
