Calorophus minor Hook.f.
Calorophus elongatus Labill. var. minor Hook. f. Fl. Tasm. 2, 1858, 75.
Hypolaena lateriflora Benth. var. minor (Hook. f.) Cheesem. Man. N.Z. Fl. 1906, 762.
Original localities: "Northern and Middle Islands. Bogs, base of Tongariro, Colenso. Top of Morse Mount, 6,500 feet, Bidwill. Port Preservation, Lyall." Lectotype: K, "nr Nelson", Bidwill 84.
Rhizome very stout compared to stems, erect, up to 8 mm. diam., covered with light brown, overlapping, scale-like sheaths and very thick tufts of brown hairs; roots ∞, 1–1.5 mm. diam., densely covered by persistent root hairs. Culms (8)–15–40–(120) cm. × (0.5)–1–1.5 mm., much-branched, flexuous, terete or grooved on one side, glab., bright green or bronze-brown, erect when short, procumbent when longer. Lvs reduced to mucronate sheaths, closely appressed to culm, distant, green at first, later dark brown, rigid, margin entire; the cilia protruding through the mouth of the sheath in tufts of white crinkled hairs arise from the outer scale of an axillary bud within the sheath; mucro long, fine, sharp-pointed, recurved or erect. Spikelets distant within uppermost sheaths. Male spikelets solitary or us. 2, 1 sessile and 1 stalked, within each hard, mucronate sheath, 1–4–(6)–fld; ♂, tepals 6, narrow-linear, acute; stamens 3, filaments slender, > tepals, anthers exserted beyond the floral bract. Female spikelets solitary within 1–3 uppermost, bearded, obtuse sheaths, 1-fld, with 2 imbricate, empty floral bracts; ♀, tepals 6–4, very small, hyaline; styles 3, free. Fr. a hard, oval nut, > persistent tepals, sessile on a thick receptacle. 2n = 24.
DIST.: N. North Cape southwards to c. lat. 40º. S. Throughout but rare in Marlborough and Canterbury. St., Ch.
Also recorded from eastern and southern Australia and Tasmania.
In lowland swamps and in mountain bogs to 1,350 m. altitude.
FL. 9–12. FT. 11–2.
This sp. was long known in both N.Z. and Australia as Hypolaena lateriflora R. Br. Johnson and Evans (Contr. N.S.W. nat. Herb., Flora Ser. 24–25, 1966, 28) give the history of the epithet lateriflora.
The type specimen of C. minor is small and slender as are most plants found in alpine regions. Plants at lower altitudes, as in the lowland bogs near Cambridge in the Waikato, are very much larger but the variation in size is continuous from low to high altitudes and it seems unnecessary to recognise 2 vars within the sp.
Hooker (Fl. N.Z. 1, 1853, 267), describing the lowland N.Z. plants under the name Calorophus elongata Labill., gave the number of florets in the male spikelets as 4–6, but no N.Z. specimen recently examined had more than 4 florets in a male spikelet.
The root and rhizome systems, as developed in two restiad peat bogs in the lower Waikato, are described by Campbell (T.R.S.N.Z. Bot. 2, 1964, 223–225, figs 2–5). Many of the abundant fine roots grow erect, often vertically erect, and all are covered throughout their length with long, closely crowded persistent root hairs. These roots intertwine into a felted whitish mat which in deeply shaded areas may cover the bog surface completely to a depth of several cm. They build upwards in conical masses around the bases of Sporadanthus stems and grow over bryophytes and fallen lvs, binding all into the peat. The root mass holds rain water like a Sphagnum sponge, to 15 times its own dry weight, and provides a substratum on which small plants of other spp. establish. The roots are resistant to decay and form a major structural component of the fibrous peat. This sort of root development may well be characteristic of the sp. in many sites and is known certainly from Southland and Westland.
Briggs (Contr. N.S.W. nat. Herb. 4, 1966, 25) determined the chromosome number. 2n = 24, from Australian material but she also obtained the same count (unpublished) from N.Z. plants.
