3-nerved; 3rd and 4th or flowering glumes equalling the empty glumes or rarely exceeding them, truncate, 4-toothed, silky at the base, the 4th separated from the 3rd by a distinct hairy internode, sometimes absent so that the spikelet becomes 1-flowered; awn from the middle of the back or below it, not twisted at the base or obscurely so, usually not far exceeding its glume. Rhachiila produced into a distinct hairy pedicel above the 4th glume.—Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 301; Fl. Tasm. ii. 118; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 334; Benth. Fl. Austral. vii. 587; Buch. N.Z. Grasses, t. 37. Aira cæspitosa, Linn. Sp. Plant. 64. A. Kingii, Hook. f. Fl. Antarct. ii. 376, t. 135. A. australis, Raoul, Choix, 12. Agrostis aucklandica, Hook. f. Fl. Antarct. i. 96.
North and South Islands, Stewart Island, Chatham Islands, Auckland Islands: Wet places from the Lower Waikato southwards, plentiful. Sea-level to 3500 ft.
An abundant grass in all cool and temperate regions. The New Zealand form has the spikelets rather larger and the awn of the flowering glume inserted somewhat higher up than is usual in northern specimens, and is distinguished as var. macrantha by Hackel.
2. D. pusilla, Petrie in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxiii. (1891) 403.—Culms densely tufted, branched at the base, 1–2 in. high, forming small compact patches. Leaves numerous, shorter than the culms, setaceous, curved, convolute; sheaths broad, membranous, grooved; ligules large for the size of the plant, acute, much broader than the blade, decurrent along the margins of the sheath. Panicle small, contracted, sometimes almost spiciform, straw-yellow, shining, ¼–¾ in. long; branches few, short, small, the lowermost bearing 2–3 spikelets, the upper 1 only. Spikelets ⅛ in. long, 2-flowered, rarely 3-flowered. Two outer glumes almost equal in length, hyaline, the lower narrower, 1-nerved, the 2nd 3-nerved; 3rd and 4th or flowering glumes faintly silky or almost glabrous at the base, broadly oblong, hyaline, indistinctly 5-nerved, truncate, irregularly 3-toothed or erose, awnless or with a minute dorsal awn inserted just below the tip. Palea as long as the glume, deeply bifid, 2-nerved. Rhachiila elongated between the flowering glumes and produced beyond the upper flower into a short bristle, quite glabrous.
South Island: Otago—Hector Mountains, Petrie! Humboldt Mountains, Cockayne! 5000–6500 ft.
A very remarkable little plant, quite distinct from any of the following species.
3. D. novæ-zealandiæ, Petrie in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxiii. (1891) 402.—Culms densely tufted, branched at the base, slender, smooth, leafy below, 3–9 in. high, rarely more. Leaves from ⅓ to ½ the length of the culms, very narrow, setaceous, involute; sheaths
