8. Agropyrum coxii, sp. nov.

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Densely tufted, slender, leafy, about 18 in. high. Leaves longer than the culms, very slender, involute, terete, perfectly smooth, limp and pliant, midrib and striæ obscure, the lower incurved edges delicately serrate. Sheaths much shorter than the blades, and three or four times as broad, smooth, finely puberulent, striate but not grooved; ligule short. Culms erect or slightly geniculate, slender, leafy to the base of the flowering-spike, which is 3 in. long. Rachis once branched at the base, the branch short and bearing two or three spikelets. Spikelets (including the awns), 7/12 in. long, 3- to 5-flowered, the lower pedicellate, the upper sessile. Empty glumes half as long as the spikelet or less, unequal; the lower narrow-linear, acute, ending in a terete scabrid point, midrib obscure; the upper narrow-lanceolate, 3-nerved below, produced into a long terete scabrid point. Flowering - glumes coriaceous, boat-shaped, produced into a long, tapering, scabrid awn that is as long as the glume or longer than it, faintly nerved, finely scabrid, serrate along most of the back; veins of the palea prominent, remotely ciliate.

Hab. Seaside rocks and sands at the Chatham Islands. Collected by Messrs. L. Cockayne and F. A. D. Cox.