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Art. LII.—Description of a new Species of Ehrharta.
Plate X.
[Read before the Otago Institute, 10th February, 1880.]
Ehrharta thomsoni, n.s.
A short tufted grass; culm flattened, branched, 2–5 inches long. Leaves distichous, glabrous, flat or concave, about 1/2 inch long, deeply and closely grooved; sheaths imbricating, broad, pale, ligule none.
Panicle contracted, erect, of 2–4 spikelets, on short slender stalks. Empty glumes, four; lower pair short, broad, obtuse, nearly equal; upper pair thrice the length of the lower, lanceolate, laterally compressed, nearly equal, silky at the base, 3–5-nerved, the nerves coalescing to form an acute awn-like tip, scabrid on the keel. Flowering glume shorter, three-nerved, bluntly and shortly acuminate. Palea linear rather coriaceous. Scales large, broadly acute, entire. Grain enclosed in the flowering glume. Stamens and styles not seen.
![Thumbnail: [Volume 12, 1879 page 357]](/journals/rsnz/images/rsnz_12/thumbnails/rsnz_12_00_0394_0000f_ac_02.jpg)
Ehrharta Thomsonii.
![Thumbnail: [Volume 12, 1879 page 357]](/journals/rsnz/images/rsnz_12/thumbnails/rsnz_12_00_0396_0357_ac_02.gif)
Habitat.—Port Pegasus, Stewart Island, on wet open ground, ranging from 100 to 1500 feet in elevation. Named in honour of G. M. Thomson, Esq., of the Dunedin High School, who discovered it along with myself. The only other New Zealand species of Ehrharta is an alpine plant from the Tararua Range, Wellington. This grass possesses, I should say, no economic value.
Description of Plate x.
| Fig. 1. |
Ehrharta thomsoni, Petrie. Nat. size. |
| 2. |
Spikelet. |
| 3. |
Upper pair of empty glumes and floret. |
| 4. |
Floret. |
| 5,5′ |
Nervation of lower pair of empty glumes. |
| 6,6′ |
" upper " " |
| 7. |
" flowering glume. |
| 8. |
" palea. |
| 9,9′ |
Scales. |
| 10. |
Grain. |