Flora of New Zealand Series

Type locality: Australian.

Rushlike. Culms 50–100–(200) cm. × 1–1.5–(2) mm., , densely packed, wiry, erect, terete. Lvs all reduced to closely appressed reddish sheaths, with a subulate, almost filiform lamina 0.5–2 cm. long. Infl. a simple or rarely branched spike, 3–9 cm. long. Spikelets c. 1 cm. long, not fascicled, 2-fld, only the upper fl. fertile; bracts subtending spikelets membr., grey-brown, nerved, ± = spikelets. Glumes 4–6, narrow- or oblong-lanceolate, acute or acuminate, with dark brown centre and pale membr. margins. Hypog. Scales 6, c. 1 mm. long, white and triangular when mature, fused at the base into a cup. Nut c. 4 × 1.5 mm., oblong, trigonous, green with white thickened obtuse angles; persistent style-base small, creamy brown, pubescent, occ. minutely apiculate.

DIST.: N. North Cape southwards to lat. 36º. S. Nelson.

Lowland on poor clay hills and in sandy soil in Leptospermum scrub or in pakihi.

Kükenthal in Fedde Repert. Spec. nov. Regn. veg. 50, 1941, 117, described the N.Z. plants as var. neozelandicum and cited a specimen from Auckland on Clay Hills, leg. H. Carse. Judging by descriptions and by Australian specimens examined, N.Z. plants are rather stouter than Australian, which have culms c. 1 mm. diam. and spikes 2–5 cm. long, with spikelets 6–8 mm. long. The olive-green nuts in N.Z. plants are longer than the light red nuts of Australian plants and the hypog. scales are purple at base in N.Z. plants but altogether white in Australian.

All specimens so far collected in South Id, all from Nelson, have had smut-infected infls, and the fls are too imperfect to show much except the arrangement of the infl. However, all these specimens agree with L. filiforme in stem anatomy as seen in transverse section.