The single New Zealand species belongs to the section Digitaria, often kept as a distinct genus, in which the spikelets are almost sessile on one side of simple digitate spikes.
1. P. sanguinale, Linn. Sp. Plant. 57.—Annual. Culms creeping or rooting at the base, then spreading or erect, 6–18 in. long. Leaves 1–6 in. long by ⅙–⅓ in. broad, flat, flaccid, pubescent or glabrous; sheaths thin, rather loose, often pilose and bearded at the nodes; ligules truncate, membranous. Spikes few or many, usually 3–6, varying in length from 1 to 4 in., crowded at the end of the culm, strict, spreading or erect; rhachis triquetrous or flattened, margins scaberulous. Spikelets geminate, one sessile, the other pedicelled, oblong-lanceolate, acute, greenish or purplish, 115–112 in. long. Outer glume very minute, ovate, acute; 2nd small, ovatelanceolate, 3-nerved, about ½ the length of the flowering glume; 3rd rather longer than the flowering glume, oblong, acute, 6–7-nerved, the nerves often ciliate; 4th or flowering glume oblong, firm and subcoriaceous, acute or acuminate.—Benth. Fl. Austral. vii. 469; Cheesem. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xx. (1888) 175.
Kermadec Islands: Not uncommon in shady places. North and South Islands: Abundant as a naturalised weed.
The Kermadec Islands plant, which is the only one which can be considered as indigenous, is referred by Hackel to the variety microbachne (Panicum microbachne, Presl.), and is a much more delicate and slender plant than the type, which is now plentiful as a naturalised weed in cultivated ground in most parts of New Zealand, as in all warm countries.
6. OPLISMENUS, Beauv.
Weak, delicate grasses. Culms decumbent and often rooting at the base, branched, ascending above, leafy. Leaves thin, flat, broad, ovate to lanceolate. Spikelets 1-flowered, jointed on the pedicel, in little clusters on the branches of a simple panicle or spike. Glumes 4, the 3 outer membranous, empty or the 3rd with a rudimentary palea; the outer short, 3-nerved, with a long straight rigid awn; 2nd rather longer, awn short or almost wanting; 3rd the largest, 5-nerved, usually awnless; 4th or flowering glume rather shorter than the 3rd, lanceolate, firm, smooth, awnlegs, hardened in fruit. Palea coriaceous like the flowering glume. Stamens 3. Styles distinct. Grain oblong, enclosed within the hardened flowering glume and palea.
Species probably not more than 4 or 5, widely distributed in the warm regions of both hemispheres.
1. O. undulatifolius, Beauv. Agrost. 54.—Culms prostrate and rooting at the base, ascending above, slender, weak, sparingly branched, 6–18 in. long. Leaves 1–3 in. long by ¼–⅓ in. broad, rarely more, lanceolate, acuminate, flat, glabrous or sparsely pilose; sheaths and nodes more or less pilose. Spike slender, 2–4 in. long;
