entire or minutely 2-lobed tip, with a long terminal geniculate awn often spirally twisted below the bend. Palea 2-nerved, enclosed within the flowering glume. Lodicules usually 3, large. Stamens 3, seldom fewer. Styles distinct, rather short. Grain narrow, terete, tightly enclosed by the hardened flowering glume and palea.
A genus of over 100 species, spread over the temperate and tropical regions of both hemispheres. Two of the New Zealand species extend to Australia, the third is endemic.
| Tall, 2–5 ft. Panicle 1–2½ ft., lax, nodding. Spikelets minute, 110–18 in. Stamen 1 | 1. S. arundinacea. |
| Densely tufted, 1–3 ft. Leaves long, terete. Panicle 4–9 in., narrow, strict, erect. Spikelets ¾ in. | 2. S. teretifolia. |
| Tufted, 1–2 ft. Leaves short, filiform. Panicle 4–8 in., lax, erect. Spikelets ¼ in. | 3. S. setacea. |
1. S. arundinacea, Benth. in Journ. Linn. Soc. xix. (1881) 81.—Rhizomes short, creeping, scaly. Culms very densely tufted, tall, erect, nodding, rigid, quite glabrous, 2–5 ft. high. Leaves from the distant nodes of the culms, the lowermost reduced to appressed sheaths, upper 6–12 in. long, ⅛–⅕ in. broad, coriaceous, flat or involute, margins and midrib slightly scaberulous; sheaths very long, closely appressed, finely ciliate along the margins; ligules short, truncate. Panicles very large and lax, nodding, 1–2½ ft. long; rhachis very slender, glabrous; branches in distant whorls of 5–8, capillary, again compound, spreading, finely scaberulous, 3–6 in. long. Spikelets minute, 110–18 in. long, greenish-purple. Two outer glumes almost equal, lanceolate, acummate, membranous, scaberulous along the keel, lower 1-nerved, upper 3-nerved; 3rd or flowering glume much shorter, sessile on a short glabrous callus, rigid, convolute, pubescent towards the tip; awn slender, scabrid, deciduous, about ⅓ in. long. Palea linear-oblong, 2-nerved. Stamen 1.—Apera arundinacea, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 295, t. 67; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 326; Buch. N.Z. Grasses, t. 17. A. purpurascens, Col. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxi. (1889) 106.
North and South Islands: Auckland—East Cape, Bishop Williams. Hawke's Bay—Petane, A. Hamilton! Dannevirke and Cape Turnagain, Colenso! Wellington—Wairarapa, Buchanan! South Karori, Kirk. Nelson—Foxhill, Wangapeka, T.F.C. Marlborough—Pelorus Valley, Rutland! Canterbury—Akaroa, Raoul, Kirk! Otago—Near Dunedin, Buchanan! Petrie! G. M. Thomson! Horse Ranges and Kaitangata, Petrie. Sea-level to 1500 ft.
A very handsome species. It is closely allied to S. verticillata, Nees (Streptachne ramosissima, Trin.), an Australian species which is often grown in gardens, and which has established itself in several localities, but which differs in the rather larger spikelets with a much longer persistent awn, and in having 3 stamens.
2. S. teretifolia, Steud. Syn. Pl. Gram. 128.—Culms densely tufted, forming large tussocks, rigid, erect, smooth and polished, quite glabrous, 1½–3 ft. high. Leaves longer or shorter than the
