North Island: Wet swamps and margins of lakes, not uncommon South Island: Nelson—Takaka, Kirk! Canterbury, Armstrong. Westland—Okarito, A. Hamilton! Southland—Bluff Island, Lyall. Stewart Island: Head of Paterson's Inlet, Petrie! Sea-level to 1500 ft. December–February.

An abundant Australian and Tasmanian plant, and very closely allied to the widely diffused E. plantaginea, R. Br.

North Island: Auckland—Sand-dunes between Cape Maria van Diemen and Ahipara, T. F. C. South Island: Nelson—Cape Farewell, Kirk!

A curious little species, belonging to the section Eleogenus, characterized by the spikelets broader than the slender stems, membranous glumes, and 2-fid style. Mr. Clarke remarks that it approaches the section Isolepis of Scirpus in the absence of hypogynous bristles and the reduced size of the swollen base of the style.

South Island: Otago—Lake Te Anau, Petrie! (No. 1647).

I have seen no specimens but Mr. Petrie's, which are in young flower only. Mr. C. B. Clarke, who has examined them, states that he is satisfied that they belong to the small group consisting of E. acicularis and a few very closely allied species, and most probably to E. acicularis itself, which is an almost cosmopolitan plant, although not yet recorded from Australia.

North and South Islands, Chatham Islands: Abundant in wet places from the North Cape to Foveaux Strait. Sea-level to 2000 ft. November–March.

Also plentiful in Australia, Tasmania, and Norfolk Island.

E. Cunninghamii, Boeck. in Flora, xli. (1858) 412 (Heleocharis).—Rhizome long, creeping, scaly, stout or slender, dark red-brown or almost black. Stems many from the rhizome, variable in length, 3–15 in., very slender, sometimes almost filiform, striate; sheath membranous, with a thin oblique mouth. Spikelet small, short, ⅛–¼ in. long, broadly ovoid, subacute, 5–20-flowered. Glumes broadly oblong, obtuse, membranous, usually pale but often stained with red-brown; margins broad, scarious. Hypogynous bristles 4–8, exceeding the nut. Style-branches 3. Nut broadly obovoid, plano-convex or obscurely trigonous, smooth, pale yellowish-brown, crowned by the small pyramidal style-base, which is rather broader than the top of the nut.—Linnœa, xxxvi. (1889–70) 427. E. gracilis, var. gracillima and var. radicans, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 270; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 301 (not of R. Br.). E. gracillima, Hook. f. Handb. N.Z. Fl. 745. Heleocharis Hookeri, Boeck. in Linnæa, xxxvi. (1869–70) 430. Isolepis acicularis, A. Rich. Fl. Nouv. Zel. 103 (not of R. Br.).

North and South Islands.—Wet places from the North Cape to Foveaux Strait, but often local in the South Island. Sea-level to 2000 ft. November–March.

Hooker's two varieties gracillima and radicans, originally published as forms of the Australian E. gracilis, only differ in size and degree of development, radicans being clearly a depauperated state. In many localities they can be seen to merge into one another. Boeckeler, probably working upon scanty herbarium material, treated them as distinct species, publishing his E. Cunninghamii, which answers to var. radicans, in 1858, and E. Hookeri, which is equivalent to var. gracillima, in 1869. E. Cunninghamii has several years' priority over Hooker's gracillima, which was not published until 1867, but it is unfortunate that it was not originally applied to what must be considered the type of the species, Hooker's var. gracillima.