9. P. dipsacea, Petrie in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxvi. (1894) 271.—Culms erect from an often long and branched creeping and rooting base, stout or slender, smooth, leafy, 6–18 in. high. Leaves usually shorter than the culms, narrow, involute or complicate, quite smooth and glabrous, deeply striate; sheaths rather loose, pale, deeply grooved; ligules short, broad, submembranous. Panicle 2–5 in. long, broadly ovate, lax, few-flowered; rhachis smooth; branches usually in distant pairs, simple or forked, smooth, capillary, bearing few large spikelets towards the tips. Spikelets long-pedicelled, elliptic-ovate, compressed, greenish-brown, about ⅓ in. long, 4–8-flowered. Two outer glumes unequal, almost as long as the flowering glumes immediately above them, lanceolate, acute, membranous, smooth or finely scabrid on the upper part of the keel. Flowering glumes ovate, obtuse or subacute, rather membranous, prominently 5-nerved, callus and lower part of the keel and margins with long silky hairs, upper part of keel sharply scabrid, surface and nerves in the upper half minutely scaberulous. Palea shorter than the glume keels ciliate. Anthers long, linear.
South Island: Nelson—Raglan Range, T.F.C. Canterbury—Wet places near the sources of the Broken River, Petrie! T.F.C.; Craigieburn Mountains, Cockayne! 3000–5000 ft.
This seems to be a distinct species, recognised without much difficulty by the long decumbent bases of the culms, very lax few-flowered panicle, and large spikelets clustered at the tips of the branchlets. Depauperated states approach P. pusilla, but are easily distinguished by the larger spikelets and more distinctly nerved scaberulous flowering glumes.
10. P. Cheesemanii, Hack. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxxv. (1903) 383.—Perennial, hardly lufted; rhizome with creeping stolons furnished with leafless scales. Culms erect or decumbent at the base, slender, smooth, terete, 3-noded, the upper node about half-way up the culm, 12-18 in. high. Leaves much shorter than the culms, 2–6 in. long, about 112 in. broad, rigid, erect, obtuse at the tip, more or less complicate when dry; sheaths shorter than the internodes, subcompressed, keeled in the upper part, glabrous; ligules shore, truncate. Panicle ovate, lax, spreading, 2–5 in. long; rhachis smooth, more or less flexuose above; lower branches ternate, upper binate or solitary, slender, almost capillary, lower ⅔ undivided and smooth, towards the tip bearing a few unispiculate branchlets. Spikelets elliptic, often tinged with red, rather more than ¼ in. long, 5–6-flowered. Two outer glumes unequal, ¾ the length of the flowering glumes above them or even more, oblong-lanceolate, acute, 3-nerved, quite smooth. Flowering glumes oblong-ovate, subacute, prominently 5-nerved, callus clothed with long crisped woolly hairs half the length of the glume, keel and nerves near the base sparingly villous, remainder of the glume smooth and glabrous. Palea almost as long as the glume, linear-oblong, scabrid on the keels. Anthers linear, about 112 in. long.
