stout or slender, quite glabrous, leafy. Leaves numerous, shorter than the culms, 112–18 broad, involute, striate, scaberulous on the margins and veins; sheaths long, contracted at the mouth, deeply grooved, pale; ligules oblong, membranous, truncate at the apex, lacerate. Panicle 1–4 in. long, ¼–¾ in. broad, contracted, linear-oblong, rather dense, erect or inclined; rhachis stout, scabrid; branches numerous, whorled, erect, scaberulous. Spikelets ⅙ in. long, light-green or purplish; pedicels usually shorter than the spikelets, scabrid, thickened at the tips. Two outer glumes subequal, lanceolate, acuminate, ciliate or almost hispid along the keel, sides scaberulous; 3rd or flowering glume ½ the length of the 2nd or rather shorter, membranous, glabrous, truncate at the apex and more or less evidently 4-cuspidate, awn from half-way down the back, straight or fiexuous or slightly recurved, usually longer thaa the spikelet. Palea very short, hardly exceeding the ovary, sometimes wanting.—Hook. f. in Phil. Trans. clxviii. (1879) 21. A. antarctica, Hook. f. Fl. Antarct. ii. 374, t. 132; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 327. A. multicaulis, Hook. f. Fl. Antarct. i. 95.
South Island: Otago—Head of Clinton Valley, near Lake Te Anau, Petrie! Auckland and Campbell Islands: Sir J. D. Hooker, Kirk! Antipodes Island: Kirk! Macquarie Island: A. Hamilton.
Also found in Chili, Fuegia, the Falkland Islands, Kerguelen Island, Marion and Heard Islands. Sir J. D. Hooker, in his memoir on the flora of Kerguelen Island (Phil. Trans. Vol. clxviii.) has reduced both A. antarctica and A. multicaulis to A. magellanica, Lam. Professor Hackel concurs in this, remarking that A. antarctica only differs from the typical A. magellanica in the less-pointed outer glumes, and that A. multicaulis is only a dwarfed state, not separable as a distinct variety.
2. A. muscosa, T. Kirk in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xiii. (1881) 385.—Minute, very densely tufted, forming small rounded cushion-like patches 1–2 in. diam., and less than 1 in. high. Culms densely packed, much branched at the base, leafy throughout. Leaves longer or shorter than the culms, pale glaucous-green; blades spreading, flaccid, involute, almost capillary; sheaths shorter or longer than the blades, lax, whitish, membranous, grooved; ligules long, subulate. Panicle very short and dense, often concealed among the leaves, contracted into a close rounded head ⅛–⅙ in. diam., usually many-spiculate, but in depauperated states the spikelets may be reduced to 2–6, or in large states the panicle may be lengthened to ¼–⅓ in.; branches short, sparsely hairy. Spikelets about 112 in. long, pale-green. Two outer glumes subequal, ovate-lanceolate, acute, with a green scabrid keel and thin hyaline margins; 3rd or flowering glume about ¼ shorter, ovate-oblong, truncate, 5-nerved, awn wanting. Palea wanting. Grain broadly oblong.—A. Spencer, Kirk in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxix. (1897) 539 (name only). A. æmula var. spathacea, Berggr. in Minneskr. Fisiog. Sallsk. Lund. (1877) 32, t. 7, f. 41–47.
