Flora of New Zealand Series

Cladium junceum R.Br. Prodr.  1810,  237.

Lepidosperma colensoi Boeck. in Linnaea  38,  1874,  328.

Machaerina juncea (R.Br.) Koyama in Bot. Mag., Tokyo  69,  1956,  64.

Type locality: Tasmanian. Type: BM. Recorded also from Australia and New Caledonia.

Rush-like. Rhizome 3–7 mm. diam., woody, occ. much elongated, covered with loose, papery, imbricate, light brown bracts. Culms (20)–30–135 cm. × 1–2.5–(3.5) mm., arising in tufts separated along a thick rhizome, terete, rigid, erect, smooth, pale blue-green, with 1–2 distant nodes. Lvs all reduced to light brown or reddish sheathing bracts, the lowermost smaller, mucronate, the upper 1–3 longer, distant along the culm, us. dark brown at the orifice, with a small, sickle-shaped, laterally flattened mucro-like lamina up to 5 mm. long. Infl. 2.5–7–(10) cm. long, stiff, erect, spike-like, sparingly branched, subtended by a much shorter sheathing bract. Spikelets not fascicled, 4–5 mm. long, red-brown, 1–2-fld, only the lowest fl. fertile. Glumes 4–5, oblong-lanceolate, acute, membr., streaked with brown, scabrid on the keel and towards the tip. Nut 2.5–3 × c. 1.5 mm., oblong-ovoid, obscurely trigonous, dark brown to black, orange near the base, surface pitted, surmounted by the small, tumid, pubescent style-base.

DIST.: N. Common from North Cape southwards to lat. 38º, local further south. S. Very rare, one record each for Nelson, Marlborough, Canterbury and Otago.

Lowland swamps, salt marshes, damp sand on lake margins and river estuaries; sea level to 275 m. altitude.

Cladium junceum R.Br. var. elatior Carse in T.N.Z.I. 48, 1916, 240, is described as "Culmus multo longior, 1–1.5 m., panicula ramosa 5–10 cm. longa . . . Not uncommon in shaded woods, Tauroa." Specimens at CHR, CANTY and K, labelled var. elatior by Carse and collected from near Reef Point, North Auckland are not outstandingly tall or slender. The infl. in the specimen at K is 10 cm. long; and in one specimen at CHR the infl. is 12 cm. long, and 2 of the panicles have a branch which is longer than usual; otherwise these specimens do not differ from normal B. juncea. Possibly they are shade forms.

Specimens at WELT and AK "with the lamina of the lf-sheaths unusually well-developed", collected from the Whareama River by Kirk, have laminae up to 2 cm. long, not sickle-shaped, but still laterally flattened. These young culms bear no infls and the specimens appear to be merely an aberrant form of B. juncea. A sheet at K. T. Kirk 834, is also from the same gathering and was cited by C. B. Clarke in his original description of Cladium micranthes in Addit. Ser. Kew 8, 1908, 46. L. B. Moore examined at K the type of C. micranthes from Borneo, Motley 574, and noted that the culms were deeply ridged, almost winged. The culms of Kirk's specimens from Whareama are smooth and terete.

Lepidosperma colensoi. Type locality: "Nova Selandia, Colenso." Boeckeler based this on Lepidosperma striata Hook. f. Fl. N.Z. 1, 1853, 279 et Herb., non R.Br. Hooker mistakenly used the name Lepidosperma striata for the plants now known as B. juncea. A specimen in Herb. Hooker. at K "in water, Tongrio lagoon 8–10 ft" Colenso 4449 with a pencilled note Lep. striata is, in fact, B. juncea.