Festuca. | GRAMINEAE. 207 
smooth and glabrous, involute, setaceous, acute ; sheaths long, fissured to 
the base, not striate; ligules short, glabrous. Panicle 14-24in. long, 
ovate-lanceolate, usually rather dense and compact; rhachis and branches 
glabrous and angled ; branches solitary or the lower binate ; divisions few, 
glabrous. Spikelets ovate-lanceolate, }-4in. long, shortly pedicelled or 
almost sessile, 4—8-flowered. Two outer glumes unequal ; lower lanceolate, 
acuminate, l-nerved ; upper larger, ovate-lanceolate, 3-nerved. Flowering 
glumes rounded on the back, oblong-lanceolate, acute, faintly 5-nerved. 
Awn variable, sometimes short and almost wanting, at other times well 
developed. Palea as long as the flowering eS linear-oblong, the keels 
smooth. iii, . = - — el >» OB & Se 
Norra Istanp; Shores of Port Nicholson, and rocky slopes of Cook Strait, 7’. Kirk / 
B. C. Aston! D. Petrie! T. F. C. SoutH Isuanp: Awatere Valley and Banks 
Peninsula, Cockayne / 
6. F. erecta D’Urv. in Mem. Soc. Linn. Paris, iv (1826) 601.—Perennial, 
densely tufted, 8-12in. high. Culms strict, erect, 2-noded or rarely 3- 
noded, the lowest node near the base, quite smooth and glabrous. Leaves 
usually overtopping the culms, narrow, strict, erect, quite glabrous ; 
sheaths rather lax, much broader than the blades, $-4 in. diam., pale, thin 
and membranous, striate ; blades narrow, #:—;'s in. across, complicate and 
appearing almost terete, quite smooth, faintly 10—-12-ribbed on the out- 
side, 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, 24-4in. long; rhachis angular, finely scabrid 
on the angles; branches usually solitary, or the lower a little remote ; 
lateral branches very short. Spikelets 2-2in. long including the awns, 
2-3-flowered ; two outer glumes unequal, lanceolate, acuminate, from 
#~£ the length of the entire spikelet; lower faintly 3-nerved, upper 
distinctly 3-nerved. Flowering glumes lanceolate, rounded on the back, 
faintly scaberulous, rather thin, distinctly 5-nerved, narrowed into a short 
stiff awn. Palea shorter than the glume, narrow-lanceolate, scaberulous 
on the keels. Grain narrow-obovoid ; hilum long, linear.—Cheesem. Vasel. 
Fl. Macquarie Is. (1919) 37; Hook. f. Fl. Antarct. ii (1847) 384. Festuca 
contracta_T. Kirk in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxvii (1898) 353; Cheesem. Man. 
N.Z. Fl. (1906) 919; Petrie in Subantarct. Is. N.Z. ii (1909) 479. 
MacquaRiE Istanp: Rocks near the sea, not uncommon, Dr. Scott! A. Hamilton / 
H. Hamilton! See Cheeette.. Ttanre S215 72O : Fy} 
Also found in Fuegia, Falkland Islands, and Kerguelen. But for its absence from 
the New Zealand Subantarctic fSlands it might be included in the ‘‘ cireumpolar species ”’ 
that are found throughout the ring or zone of widely separated islands that girdle the 
Antarctic seas within the parallels of 45° S. to 60°S. I am indebted to Dr. Stapf, of the 
Kew Herbarium, for comparing some of Mr. Hamilton’s specimens with Fuegian 
examples, and for informing me that they quite correspond. 
EAe*e: . 
7. F. Coxii, Hack. in Cheesem. Man. N.Z. Fl. (1906) 919.—Rhizome 
stout, creeping. Culms densely tufted, branched at the base, erect or 
slightly geniculate, slender, smooth, leafy, 6-18 in. high. Leaves numerous, 
longer than the culms, slender, soft, pliant, the margins so much involute 
that the leaf is terete, smooth on the back, midrib prominent on the inner 
face; sheaths rather lax, thin, smooth, striate, open to the base ; ligules 
very short, truncate, ciliolate at the tip. »Panicle 2-3 in. long, narrow, 
rather dense, often reduced to a simple raceme or spike, or with 2-3-spicu- 
late branches in the lower part; rhachis stout, angled, scabrid ; branches 
or pedicels very short, stout, scabrid, the upper spikelets nearly sessile, 
