Spikelets compressed, pale-green, 110–18 in. long, 3–4-flowered. Two outer glumes very unequal, small, several times less than the length of the spikelet; lower minute, ovate, obtuse, 1-nerved; upper three times the length, broadly ovate, concave, 3-nerved, obtuse or truncate or erose at the tip. Flowering glumes ovate-oblong, acute, prominently 3-nerved, glabrous, smooth or minutely scabrid on the keel and nerves. Palea shorter than the glume, linear-oblong, ciliate on the keels. Anthers broadly oblong, minute, about 160 in. long.—Handh. N.Z. Fl. 337 (in part).
Auckland Islands: Kirk! Chapman! Campbell Island: Sir J. D. Hooker!
Of this species I have only seen a fragment of one of Hooker's Campbell Island specimens, and two or three collected on the Auckland Islands by Kirk and Chapman. All these differ from P. imbecilla in the very unequal and much more minute outer glumes, and in the prominently nerved and acute flowering glumes. How far these characters are constant can only be ascertained from the inspection of a larger series of specimens. The New Zealand examples referred to P. breviglumis in the Handbook are probably referable to P. imbecilla var. Matthewsii.
29. ATROPIS, Rupr.
Annual or perennial grasses. Leaves linear, flat or plicate or convolute; ligules hyaline. Spikelets 3- to many-flowered, narrow, laterally compressed or almost cylindric, in open or contracted panicles; rhachilla disarticulating above the two outer glumes and between the flowering glumes, glabrous, produced beyond the uppermost flower. Two outer glumes persistent, broad, empty, unequal, rounded on the back, 1–3-nerved. Flowering glumes broad, oblong, obtuse, rounded on the back, 5-nerved, nerves often obscure. Palea nearly as long as the flowering glume, 2-keeled. Lodicules 2, large, ovate, usually distinct. Stamens 3. Ovary glabrous; styles wanting; stigmas plumose. Grain enclosed in the hardened flowering glume and palea, oblong, almost semiterete; hilum small, basal, punctiform.
A small genus of 12 or 14 species, mostly from the temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. It differs from Poa principally in the flowering glumes being rounded on the back, not keeled.
| Panicle contracted, lax; branches distant. Spikelets ¼–⅓ in., 5–9-flowered. Empty glumes very small | 1. A. stricta. |
| Panicle contracted, dense; branches close. Spikelets ¼ in., 4-flowered. Empty glumes longer, half the length of the spikelet | 2. A. novæ-zealandiæ. |
A. pumila, T. Kirk in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xiv. (1882) 379, is Triodia pumila, Hack.
1. A. stricta, Hack. MSS.—Annual. Culms tufted, strict, erect, quite glabrous, leafy, 3–4-noded, the uppermost node below the middle, 6–18 in. high. Leaves sheathing almost the whole of the
