Flora of New Zealand Series

U. riparia R.Br. var. banksii (Boott) C. B. Clarke in J. Linn. Soc. (Bot.) 20, 1883, 392.

U. capillaris Col. in T.N.Z.I.  20,  1888,  210.

Original localities: "Northern and Southern Islands, Banks and Solander, Sinclair, Lyall, etc." Type: K, Bay of Islands, Sinclair.

Very dense blue-green or bright green tufts. Culms 10–35 cm. long, much < 0.5 mm. diam., glab., terete; basal bracts dull reddish brown. Lvs 3–6 per culm, = or > culm, 0.5–1.5 mm. wide, very soft, harshly scabrid on margins and upper surface towards the long filiform tip. Spikes 3–7 cm. × 1–2 mm., occ. bracteate, female fls c. 5–10, all distant, internodes (1)–4–10 mm. long, male glumes scarcely imbricating. Glumes much < utricles, deciduous, ovate or oblong, acute or acuminate, hyaline with a green midrib. Utricles (4.5)–5–6 mm. long, slightly < 1 mm. diam., plano-convex or terete, narrow-lanceolate or oblong, strongly nerved, rarely smooth, green to very pale brown, not spreading at maturity, distinctly contracted to a stipe 0.5–1 mm. long, beak 1–1.5 mm. long.

DIST.: N. Common north of latitude 38 and on the west side as far south as Wellington; rare in the east. S. N.W. Nelson, Marlborough Sounds, Canterbury and Otago, but only local.

Lowland forest and scrub to 450 m. altitude.

U. capillaris Col. was described from "thick dry woods, south of Dannevirke, County of Waipawa; 1887: W.C." The lectotype, WELT, 21758, bears a Colenso label "filiform Uncinia Feby./87."

U. banksii var. major Boott in Hook. f. Fl. N.Z. 1, 1853, 287. "Flosculis foemineis pluribus magis attenuatis . . . Woods, Wairarapa Valley and Palliser Bay, Colenso." No specimens have been traced nor does there seem any reason to separate a var. on these characters (number and attenuation of fls).