rather slender, straight, 1½–3 in. long, usually 3–6 in a terminal umbel, generally one inserted lower down; rhachis smooth or pubescent at the base. Spikelets about ⅙ in. long, densely imbricated, 3–6-flowered. Two outer glumes unequal, the lower small, 1-nerved; the upper 3–5-nerved. Flowering glumes much larger, ovate when spread out, acute, 3-nerved. Grain oblong; pericarp very lax and membranous, enclosing the rugose seed.—Benth. Fl. Austral. vii. 615; Cheesem. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xx. (1888) 176.
Kermadec Islands: Lower portions of Sunday Island and on Meyer Island, plentiful and apparently indigenous, T.F.C. North and South Islands: Naturalised near Auckland, Sinclair, and at Westport, Townson!
25. ARUNDO, Linn.
Tall perennial reed-like grasses. Culms densely tufted, stout, almost woody at the base. Leaves flat. Spikelets numerous, laterally compressed, 2–7-flowered, arranged in large decompound panicles; rhachilla disarticulating above the two outer glumes and between the flowering glumes. Two outer glumes persistent, empty, subequal, lanceolate, acun:iinate, membranous, glabrous. Flowering glumes ovate-lanceolate, 3–5-nerved, pilose along the back and towards the base with long silky hairs, 2-fid at the apex, with a cuspidate point or awn from between the lobes. Palea short, hyaline, 2-nerved. Lodicules 2, obovate. Stamens 3. Ovary glabrous; styles distinct; stigmas plumose. Grain oblong, free within the flowering glume and palea.
A small genus of 6 or 7 species, dispersed through most tropical and warm-temperate regions. The two species found in New Zealand are endemic.
| Two outer glumes including the flowering glumes and their awns. Flowering glumes deeply bifid, the divisions long and bristle-pointed | 1. A. conspicua. |
| Two outer glumes shorter than the awns of the flowering glumes. Flowering glumes not so deeply bifid, the divisions scarcely bristle-pointed | 2. A. fulvida. |
1. A. conspicua, Forst. Prodr. n. 48.—Forming huge dense tussocks with numerous long curving leaves. Culms 3–10 ft. high, as thick as the finger at the base, slender, erect, smooth, hollow. Leaves long, narrow, coriaceous, flat or involute, strongly nerved, smooth or scabrid along the margins and on the nerves of the upper surface; sheaths long, smooth; ligules reduced to a transverse band of short stiff hairs. Panicle very handsome, silky-white or yellowish-white, copiously branched, 1–2 ft. long; branches drooping, very many-spiculate, smooth or pilose-scabrid. Spikelets 1–3-flowered, on short capillary pedicels. Two outer glumes subequal, ¾–1½ in. long, longer than or at least equalling the awns of the flowering glumes, narrow-lanceolate, gradually tapering into long
