1. I. arundinacea, Cyr. Pl. Rar. Ic. ii. 26, t. 11; var. Kœnigii, Benth. Fl. Hongk. 419.—Culms 1–3 ft. high, slender, erect, glabrous, 3–4-noded. Leaves erect, narrow, often exceeding the culms; sheaths rather loose, with a dense erect tuft of hairs at the nodes; ligules short, membranous, truncate; laminae linear from a very narrow base, acuminate, rather rigid, flat or convolute; margins scabrid; midrib stout. Panicle densely spiciform, 3–6 in. long, cylindric, obtuse, silvery-white and shining from the long and silky hairs which conceal the glumes; branchlets very numerous, appressed; pedicels capillary or setaceous, clavate at the apex. Spikelets about ⅙ in. long, completely enveloped by fine silky hairs ⅓ in. long. Empty glumes ovate-lanceolate, obtuse or subacute, hyaline, 5–7-nerved or the uppermost nerveless. Flowering glume ⅓–½ as long as the upper empty glume, ovate, acute, glabrous, hyaline, nerveless. Palea about ½ as long as the glume, quadrate, truncate, nerveless. Stamens 2. Stigmas long, purple.—Hack. in D.C. Monog. Phan. vi. 94; Stapf. Fl. Capen. vii. 321.
North Island: Auckland—Near Kaitaia, R. H. Matthews!
Perhaps introduced only, but it is one of those species which might be expected to be indigenous in the extreme north of the colony, and I have consequently given it the benefit of the doubt. The species, in some of its forms, is found in all warm countries; var. Kœnigii is common throughout Africa, and in Australia and Tasmania, stretching northwards to India, China, and Japan.
2. I. Cheesemanii, Hack. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxxv. (1903) 378.—Perennial, innovation-shoots extravaginal. Culms 1–3 ft. high, simple, stout, erect, glabrous, 3-noded. Leaves numerous, rather shorter than the culms; sheaths loose, bearded at the mouth but otherwise glabrous, the uppermost sheathing the base of the panicle, the lowest scale-like; ligules short, truncate, membranous; laminae linear from a narrow base, acute or acuminate, ½–¾ in. broad, flat, nerved, glabrous; margins scabrid above. Panicle narrow-lanceolate, gradually narrowed upwards into an acute point, 5–10 in. long, ¾–1¼ in. broad, dense but not so much so as in I. arundinacea, greyish-white with long soft hairs that conceal the glumes, not shining; branches numerous, erecto-patent, flexuose, simple or with short branchlets in the lower half, pedicels clavate above. Spikelets about ⅛ in. long, enveloped by long soft hairs ¼–⅓ in. long. Outer glume as long as the spikelet, lanceolate, subacute, membranous, obscurely 5-nerved, laxly pilose along the back, ciliolate at the apex; the 2nd similar but 3-nerved; 3rd ⅓ shorter, broadly ovate, obtuse, hyaline, nerveless. Flowering glume ⅓ shorter than the outer empty glumes, ovate, acuminate, tridentate, hyaline, nerveless. Palea broad, truncate, fimbriate-ciliate. Stamen 1. Stigmas long, purple.—I. arundinacea, Cheesem. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xx. (1888) 175 (not of Cyr.).
