as long as the glume, deeply 2-fid, serrulate along the keels. Grain linear-oblong, deeply grooved; hilum ⅘ the length of the grain.—Agropyrum Coxii, Petrie in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxxiv. (1902) 395.
Chatham Islands: Common on rocks and sands near the shore, Cox and Cockayne!
A distinct species, well marked by the peculiar habit, narrow spike-like panicles, short stout pedicels, narrow awned empty glumes, and by the long-awned flowering glumes.
31. BROMUS, Linn.
Annual or perennial grasses, of very various habit. Leaves flat, often flaccid; ligules membranous. Spikelets laterally compressed, 4- to many-flowered, arranged in a lax or contracted panicle, rarely reduced to a raceme; rhachilla disarticulating above the two outer glumes and between the flowering glumes. Two outer glumes unequal, empty, persistent, 1–7-nerved. Flowering glumes lanceolate to oblong, rounded on the back or keeled, 5–9-nerved, usually 2-toothed at the apex, awned from between the teeth or rarely from below them. Palea 2-toothed, ciliolate or scabrid on the keels. Lodicules 2, oblong or lanceolate, entire or lobed. Stamens usually 3. Ovary oblong or obovoid, furnished with a 2–3-lobed hairy cushion-like appendage at the summit; styles short, placed laterally on the appendage; stigmas plumose. Grain linear or oblong, furrowed, adherent to the palea; hilum long, narrow-linear.
Species 40 or 50, most abundant in the north temperate zone and in South America, rare on the high mountains of the tropics. The single indigenous species is a common Australian plant.
1. B. arenarius, Labill. Pl. Nov. Holl. i. 23, t. 28.—Annual, everywhere villous with soft spreading hairs. Culms slender, erect or ascending, sometimes geniculate near the base, leafy. Leaves 2–5 in. long, linear, flat, flaccid, withering early; sheaths close, thin, strongly striate; ligules hyaline, fimbriate at the tip. Panicle 2–6 in. long, flaccid, nodding; rhachis slender, pilose; branches in fascicles of 3–7, slender, capillary, spreading and flexuous, the longest 1½ in. long, bearing 1–3 spikelets on very slender capillary pedicels. Spikelets about ¾ in. long without the awns, 1¼–1½ in. long with them, 4–8-flowered. Two outer glumes unequal, not ½ the length of the spikelet, villous with long hairs, acuminate, margins hyaline; the lower narrow-lanceolate, 3-nerved, but the lateral nerves often short and faint; upper oblong-lanceolate, 5–7-nerved. Flowering glumes oblong-lanceolate, thin and membranous, hyaline on the margins, strongly 7-nerved, villous, deeply 2-fid at the tip; awn as long or longer than the glume, straight, scabrid, from the back just below the notch. Palea narrow, shorter than the glume, ciliate on the keels.—Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel.
