Danthonaa. | GRAMINEAE. 179 
sreen, Lin. long, 3-5-flowered. Two outer glumes exceeding the flowering 
glumes and often the awns as well, subequal, oblong-lanceolate, acute, 
3-5-nerved. Flowering glumes 7—-9-nerved, 2-lobed at the tip, the lobes 
produced into short awns, central awn from between the lobes, short, 
hardly equalling the length of the glume, straight or bent, not at all or 
very obscurely twisted at the base, a tuft of silky hairs at the base of the 
glume and on the margins higher up, usually connected by straggling hairs 
on the back-and sides, forming an indistinct transverse ring. Palea 
oblong, 2-nerved ; nerves ciliate —Cheesem. Man. N.Z. Fl. (1906) 891. 
Var. tenuis Petrie in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xivi (1914) 37.—Leaves setaceo-filiform, 
shorter than the culms. Panicle linear. Spikelets shorter and narrower than the 
type ! 
Sours IsLaAnD: Canterbury—Upper Waimakariri, 7. Kirk! Petrie! T. F.C. ; Mount 
Torlesse, Petrie! Mount Arrowsmith, Cockayne. Otago—Lake district, Hector and 
Buchanan! Kurow, Mount Ida, Macrae’s, Pembroke, Bendigo, Lake Te Anau, Peirie ! 
Southland, Crosby Smith. 1060-3000 ft. Var. tenuis: Not uncommon in the 
interior of Otago, Petrie. 
Very closely allied to D. semiannularis, with which Professor Hackel is disposed 
to unite it. But the spikelets are smaller, the awns shorter, often not exserted beyond 
the outer glumes, and the flowering glume is shorter and broader, and more sparingly 
silky. The plant figured by Mr. Buchanan in his New Zealand Grasses (t. 35) as 
Danthonia Buchenani is a slender form of Hierochloe redolens. 
13. D. nuda Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. ii (1855) 337.— Culms slender, leaty, 
often much branched and decumbent at the base, erect above, 4-12 in. 
high, smooth and glabrous. Leaves shorter than the culms, involute, 
filiform; ligules reduced to a few long silky hairs; sheaths long, pale, 
erooved. Panicle small, ovate or oblong, $-1j in. long, of 6-15 spikelets ; 
branches few, short, pubescent. Spikelets $-4in. long, 2-3-flowered. 
Two outer glumes subequal, exceeding the flowering glumes and awns, 
oblong-lanceolate, acute. Flowering glumes very shortly bifid at the top, 
intermediate awn short, straight, about 4-4 the length of the glume ; two 
short tufts of hairs on each side near the margin of the glume, with a tuit 
at the base of the glume, and a few scattered hairs across the back.—Handb. 
N.Z. Fl. (1864) 333 (but not of Buch. N.Z. Grasses, t. 364, or of Cheesem. 
Man. N.Z. Fl. (1906) 892). FNL ZI. AR SRD at ee: 1 OE. 
North Istanp: Ruahine Range, W. Colenso'/ Tararua Range, B. C. Aston! 
near Waiouru, Petrie / , ! 
As remarked by Hooker, this is not at all a characteristic species of Danthonia, 
differing in the very short erect awn, which is never twisted at the base, and in the 
ruch less evident lateral awns. 
[ 24. ELEUSINE Gaertn. 17 5¢ “J 
Annual or perennial grasses. Leaves long, flat or folded, firm or mem- 
branous. Spikelets 3- to many-flowered, laterally compressed, sessile and 
densely imbricate in 2 rows on one side of a flattened rhachis, forming linear 
spikes; spikes digitately arranged or irregularly scattered ; rhachilla dis- 
articulating above the outer glumes. ‘T'wo outer glumes shorter than the 
flowering glumes, persistent, empty, unequal, keeled, obtuse or mucronate, 
membranous, 3—5-nerved. Flowering glumes similar to the outer glumes, 
3-nerved at the base. Palea shorter than the glumes, complicate and 
9-keeled. Lodicules 2, minute. Stamens 3; anthers short. Styles short, 
distinct ; stigmas plumose. Grain broadly oblong, grooved; pericarp. lax, 
hyaline. [= &S al 
Species 6, most plentiful in tropical Asia and Africa, the one found in the New 
Zealand area a weed in all warm countries. 
