Flora of New Zealand Series

Type locality: Cape Farewell, Nelson. Lectotype: K, Kirk 1005, Jan., 1884; isotypes at AK, WELT and WELTU.

Rhizome far-creeping, dark brown, c. 1 mm. diam. Culms 3–6–(8) cm. × c. 0.5 mm., rigid, often curved, sheaths membr., lower purple-brown, upper with orifice slightly to very oblique and tapering to a sharp point. Spikelets 5–6–(8) × 1–4 mm., 4–10-fld, broadly ovoid, acute to obtuse, much broader than clum. Glumes 2.5–3.5 mm. long, ovate, obtuse, uninerved. Hypog. bristles 0. Stamens 3, or 2. Style 2-fid. Nut 1.5–2 × c. 1mm., rather asymmetrically obovate, biconvex, narrowed in lower half, smooth and shining, golden-brown, the persistent style-base very small, dark brown, with a prominent basal ring.

DIST.: N. Northland, between Cape Maria van Diemen and Ahipara; Wellington province, near Rangitikei R. mouth, near Foxton, Hokio and Levin. S. Nelson, Cape Farewell; Canterbury, New Brighton.

Coastal in damp places among sand dunes, or on sandy margins of tidal creeks.

HYBRIDISM

Cockayne and Allan (Ann. Bot. 48, 1934, 14) record E. acuta × sphacelate as "doubtful". "The two species differ widely, but Allan has observed intermediate forms in one locality where the two grow in company." I have seen no evidence of this hybrid among the herbarium specimens which I have examined.

The type was illustrated in C. B. Clarke's Ill. Cyp. 1909, t. 36, f. 10–14.

Until E. neozelandica was recently rediscovered in the type locality (CHR 176874, M. J. A. Simpson) the sp. had not been collected in South Id for many years. Only 3 collections are known for Canterbury. In the Armstrong Herb. at CANTY there is a specimen from New Brighton, near Christchurch, and another sheet of mixed E. neozelandica and Scirpus cernuus from the mouth of the Waimakariri R., and in the Lincoln College herb. there is a specimen collected from New Brighton by H. P. Donald.