1. F. littoralis, Labill. Pl. Nov. Holl. i. 22, t. 27.—Forming dense hard tussocks of a pale yellow-green colour. Culms branched at the base, erect, rigid, smooth and polished, 1½–3 ft. high. Leaves longer or shorter than the culms, narrow, so strongly involute that the blade is terete, erect, rigid and pungent-pointed, quite smooth and polished; sheaths pale, grooved; ligules short. Panicle 2–9 in. long, narrow, dense and spike-like; rhachis stout, angled, grooved; branches short, erect, usually few-flowered; pedicels short, pilose. Spikelets large, broad, flattened or somewhat turgid, ½–¾ in. long, 4–7-flowered, pale yellowish-green. Two outer glumes subequal, more than half as long as the spikelet, keeled, lanceolate, acuminate, 3–5-nerved, glabrous. Flowering glumes oblong-lanceolate, rounded on the back at the base, keeled above, 5–7-nerved, acute or very minutely notched at the tip, the central nerve stout and slightly protruding in the notch, equally minutely hairy all over, base of glume, callus, and rhachilla more or less densely clothed with short hairs. Palea lanceolate, ciliolate along the keels. Grain narrow-oblong, almost terete; hilum linear, very short.—A. Rich. Fl. Nouv. Zel. 123; Hook. f. Fl. Tasm. ii. 128; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 341; Buch. N.Z. Grasses, t. 54. Schedonorus littoralis, Beauv. Agrost. 99; A. Cunn. Precur. n. 259; Raoul, Choix, 39; Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 310.
North and South Islands, Stewart Island, Chatham Islands: Abundant in sandy and rocky places near the shore. Also common on the coasts of temperate Australia.
2. F. ovina, Linn. Sp. Plant. 73.—Culms 6–18 in. high, densely tufted, slender, erect, 2–3-noded; innovation-shoots always intravaginal, not stoloniferous. Leaves 2–6 in. long, all similar, narrow, setaceous or capillary, obtuse or acute, 3–7-nerved, green or glaucous, smooth or minutely scabrid; sheaths of the innovation-shoots either open nearly to the base or more or less closed, 3–9-nerved; ligules short, truncate, 2-lobed and articulate. Panicle 1–5 in. long, narrow, dense or rather lax, erect or nodding, often secund; rhachis smooth or scabrid; branches solitary or the lower binate, simple or divided, usually scabrid. Spikelets oblong or oblong-lanceolate, ⅕–⅓ in. long, laxly 4–7-flowered. Two outer glumes unequal, lanceolate, acute, lower 1-nerved, upper larger, 3-nerved. Flowering glumes oblong-lanceolate, rounded on the back, smooth or minutely scaberulous, sometimes pruinose, faintly 5-nerved, shortly awned. Palea as long as the glume, ciliolate on the keels.—F. duriuscula, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 309; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 341 (in part, not of Linn.).
