Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/810

770 solitary terminal spikelet. Spikelets many-flowered. Glumes imbricate all round or rarely distichous; the lowest 1–2 empty; the remainder all hermaphrodite, or the uppermost male or sterile. Hypogynous bristles wanting. Stamens 3, more rarely 2 or 1. Style often hairy or ciliate, with a bulbiform or conic base, deciduous; style-branches 3 or 2. Not obovoid, trigonous or biconvex, often narrowed at the base.

1. F. squarrosa, Vahl. Enum. ii. 289.—A slender more or less pubescent annual 2–8 in. high; stems numerous, tufted, striate. Leaves linear, setaceous, shorter than the steins. Umbel terminal, usually compound, 1–3 in. diam.; rays slender, unequal, 1–2 in. long; bracts 3–4, similar to the leaves, often exceeding the umbel. Spikelets numerous, on slender pedicels, ⅙–⅕ in. long, narrow-ovoid, brownish. Glumes elliptic-lanceolate, acuminate, keeled, 3-nerved, more or less squarrose. Stamens 1 or 2. Style pubescent, the bulbiform base with numerous long hairs which hang over the nut and are closely appressed to it; style-branches 2. Nut about 1 the length of the glume, obovoid-oblong, biconvex, pale-yellow, smooth.

Glabrous annual or perennial herbs of very various habit, small and tufted, or tall and stout with a creeping rhizome. Leaves usually from near the base of the stem, long or short, sometimes reduced to appressed sheaths. Spikelets usually many-flowered, solitary or fascicled, or more numerous and umbellate or panicled. Glumes imbricate all round the rhachis; lowest 1 or 2 empty; several or many succeeding ones hermaphrodite and fruit-bearing; the uppermost sterile. Hypogynous bristles 3–8 or wanting. Stamens 3 or fewer. Style long or short, passing gradually into the nut; style-branches 2 or 3. Nut obovoid or broadly oblong, trigonous or plano-convex, sessile or nearly so.