high. Leaves short, soft, flat, ⅛–⅙ in. broad; upper sheaths long, grooved, more or less inflated; ligules long, membranous. Spike 1–2 in. long, ¼–⅓ in. broad, dense, cylindric, greenish-yellow; branches short, the ultimate ones bearing a single spikelet. Spikelets numerous, closely imbricating, much compressed, 110–18 in. long. Two outer glumes slightly connate at the base, obtuse or subacute, membranous, pubescent, ciliate along the keel; 3rd or flowering glume rather shorter than the empty ones, thin, convolute, truncate and erose at the tip; awn slender, not twice the length of the glume, almost basal, straight or recurved. Anthers linear, orange-yellow.—Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 290; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 321; Benth. Fl. Austral. vii. 555; Buch. N.Z. Grasses, t. 5.
North Island: Auckland—Lower Waikato, H. Carse! East Cape district, Bishop Williams! Hawke's Bay—Colenso! Wellington—Wairarapa, Buchanan! near Wellington, Kirk! South Island: Not uncommon in marshy places throughout. Sea-level to 3500 ft. Marsh Foxtail.
An abundant grass in marshy places in most temperate regions. The allied species A. pratensis (Meadow Foxtail) and A. agrestis (Slender Foxtail), descriptions of which will be found in any British flora, have become naturalised in several localities in both Islands.
15. SPOROBOLUS, R. Br.
Annual or perennial grasses, of very various habit. Leaves flat or convolute. Spikelets small, often minute, 1-flowered, awniess, arranged in a narrow spike-like or effuse panicle; rhachilla very short, obscurely jointed above the 2 outer glumes, not produced beyond the flower or very rarely so. Glumes 3, membranous, nerveless or 1–3-nerved; 2 outer unequal, empty, persistent or separately deciduous; 3rd or flowering glume longer than or equalling the 2nd. Palea usually almost as long as the flowering glume, 2-nerved, often splitting between the nerves. Lodicules 2, small. Stamens 2–3. Styles short, distinct. Grain free within the flowering glume and palea; the pericarp lax, usually deciduous.
Species about 80, dispersed through the tropical and subtropical regions of both hemispheres, but most numerous in America.
1. S. indicus, R. Br. Prodr. 170.—Perennial. Culms tufted, stout, rigid, perfectly glabrous, 1–2 ft. high. Leaves mostly at the base of the culms and shorter than them, 4–12 in. long, 112–18 broad, usually involute, tapering to a fine point, glabrous, margins smooth; sheaths pale, compressed, often ciliate on the margins; ligules reduced to a ciliate rim. Panicle erect, spike-like, very narrow, 3–9 in. long, sometimes interrupted below; branches short, crowded, erect and appressed to the rhachis. Spikelets very numerous, crowded, ½ in. long. Two outer glumes unequal, the lowest not much more than one-half the length of the 2nd, hyaline, nerveless, or the 2nd 1-nerved; 3rd or flowering glume nearly twice
