ligules oblong, obtuse, lacerate. Panicle very long and narrow, 1½–4 in. by 110–16 in. broad, erect, pale-green; rhachis minutely scaberulous; branches few, fascicled, very short, erect; pedicels short, capillary, scaberulous. Spikelets 112–110 in. long, pale. Two outer glumes subequal, lanceolate, acute, shining, 1-nerved, slightly scabrid on the keel, smooth on the sides; 3rd or flowering glume about ¼ shorter, ovate-lanceolate, thin and hyalme, truncate, minutely denticulate, glabrous, faintly 5-nerved, awn wanting. Grain oblong.
South Island: Canterbury—Broken River, Petrie! Porter River, Kirk! Otago—Macrae's, Lake Wakatipu, Petrie! 1000–3000 ft.
A very distinct species, easily recognised by the very slender habit, excessively narrow pale-green panicle, and small shining spikelets.
18. DEYEUXIA, Clarion.
Annual or perennial grasses. Leaves flat or involute; ligules membranous. Spikelets small, 1-flowered, arranged in effuse or contracted or spike-like panicles with capillary whorled branches; rhachilla disarticulating above the 2 outer glumes, produced beyond the flower into a silky bristle. Glumes 3; 2 outer equal or subequal, persistent, empty, keeled, acute, not awned, usually 1-nerved; 3rd or flowering glume shorter than the empty glumes or equalling them, thin and hyaline or rigidly membranous or almost coriaceous, 5-nerved, entire or 2–4-dentate, callus at the base silky; awn generally present, straight or twisted, inserted above or below the middle of the glume. Palea more than half as long as the flowering glume or almost equalling it, thin, 2-nerved or 2-keeled. Stamens 3. Styles distinct, short; stigmas plumose. Grain oblong or obovoid, enclosed w thin the flowering glume and palea.
Species over 100, widely dispersed through the temperate regions of both hemispheres, particularly abundant in Andine South America. It is not at all easy to separate Deyeuxia from the allied genera Agrostis and Calamagrostis, and of late many authors, including Hackel, have placed the majority of species under the latter genus. It appears to me, however, that there is much to be said in favour of the arrangement proposed in Hooker's "Flora of British India" (Vol. vii., p. 253), where Agrostis is limited to species in which the rhachilla is not produced at the back of the flower, and in which the callus of the flowering glume is naked or nearly so, Calamagrostis containing those in which there is also no prolongation of the rhachilla, but which have the callus villous with long hairs, while in Deyeuxia the species have both an elongated rhachilla and hairy callus. Understood in this sense, there are 7 New Zealand species of the genus, 3 of which extend to Australia and Tasmania, the remaining 4 being endemic.
| * Flowering glume ⅓–½ shorter than the empty glumes, thin and hyaline. Panicle very broad and lax; branches long, spreading, capillary. | |
| Spikelets 112–18 in. Flowering glume silky, truncate, minutely 4-denticulate; awn from the middle of the back | 1. D. Forsteri. |
