rather shorter and broader than the 3rd, 3-nerved; 3rd with a palea and male flower, 5–7-nerved; 4th or flowering glume rather shorter and narrower, firmer in texture.—Cheesem in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xx. (1888) 175. C. anomoplexis, Lab. Sert. Austr. Caled. 14, t. 19.
Kermadec Islands: Sandy soil on the north side of Sunday Island, not common, T.F.C. Also a native of New Caledonia and others of the Pacific islands.
8. SPINIFEX, Linn.
Usually wide-creeping hard and stout branching grasses. Leaves long, involute, silky. Inflorescence dioecious. Male spikelets 2-flowered, sessile or shortly pedicelled, articulate on long erect spikes which are arranged in umbels surrounded by leafy spathaceous bracts. Glumes 4, all membranous, awnless; 2 lowest empty; 3rd and 4th each with a palea and 3 stamens. Female spikelets 1- or rarely 2-flowered, numerous, each one solitary at the base of long rigid pungent stellately spreading spines, surrounded by short lanceolate bracts, the whole inflorescence forming a large globose head. Glumes 4, subequal, narrow; 2 lowest empty; 3rd with a palea and sometimes with a rudimentary male flower; 4th with a female flower. Lodicules 2, large. Styles long, free; stigmas plumose. Grain free withm the hardened flowering glume and palea.
A small genus of 4 species, 3 of which are found in Australia, one of them extending to New Zealand and New Caledonia, the fourth stretching from Ceylon and India to Java, China, and Japan.
1. S. hirsutus, Labill. Pl. Nov. Holl. ii. 81, t. 230, 231.—Stems creeping and rooting, branched, often many feet long, stout, knotted, silky or woolly. Leaves 1–2 ft. long, coriaceous, flexuous, densely clothed with soft silky hairs, margins strongly involute; sheaths long, broad, the inner smooth and shining; ligules split into a dense brush of erect silky hairs. Male spikes numerous, 2–4 in. long, arranged in a terminal umbel, with or without a cluster of 2–3 placed lower down the culm. Spikelets about ⅓ in. long. Glumes silky, 5–7-nerved. Female heads large, globose, 6–12 in. diam.; spines very numerous, spreading all round, slender, subulate, pungent-pointed. Spikelets very narrow, acute or acuminate, ½ in. long. Glumes 7–9-nerved.—Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 292; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 322; Benth. Fl. Austral. vii. 503; Buch. N.Z. Grasses, t. 8, 9. S. sericeus, R. Br. Prodr. 198; A. Rich. Fl. Nouv. Zel. 122; A. Cunn. Precur. n. 268; Raoul, Choix, 40. Ixalum inerme, Forst. Prodr. n. 564.
North Island: Abundant on sandhills near the sea. South Island: Nelson— Sandy shores of Blind Bay, T.F.C; Cape Farewell, H. H. Travers. Canterbury—Travers, Armstrong.
