Carex vulpinoidea Michx.
Dense stiff clumps, 50-80 cm high. Stems firm, erect, sharply 3-angled, harshly scabrid on angles just below inflorescence. Leaves usually > stems, 2-5 mm wide, ± flat, strongly scabrid; sheaths long, membranous, transversely-rugulose for 2-4 cm below mouth. Inflorescence a very dense, ± cylindrical, ± lobed, spiciform panicle 6-10 × ± 1 cm, green to light brown. Spikes numerous, sessile, very crowded above, lower ones more distant with setaceous bracts < inflorescence, male flowers at top of spikes, female flowers densely crowded. Glumes much < utricles, ovate with far excurrent midrib. Utricles 2-2.5 × 1.5 mm, ovate, plano-convex, faintly nerved on convex face, tapering to a narrow bifid beak ± 1 mm long with sparsely scabrid margins. Stigmas 2. Nut almost spherical, biconvex.
N. Southwards to Waikato and Bay of Plenty; rare further south. S. N.W. Nelson; Buller; Westland. Swampy places. (N. and S. America)
First record: Allan 1940: 221.
First collection: Roadside Erua-Matatoke Rd, Ruapehu district, H. Carse, 5.1.1918 (AK 96798); WELT 44257 is probably a duplicate but is dated "early Jan. 1918".
This densely tufted unpalatable sp. is characterised by ± lobed, rough-bristly, oblong or cylindric heads with stiff setaceous bracts. It is spreading, and is locally a nuisance in poor pasture on damp to swampy land, on roadsides and in swampy waste places.
The distribution is unusual: through N. Auckland and Bay of Plenty, one gathering from Taranaki, and on west coast of S. Island, from N.W. Nelson to S. Westland; not known elsewhere in N.Z. As C. vulpinoidea has a wide geographical range in the United States its absence from large areas in N.Z. suggests non-introduction rather than an inability to find suitable sites or to tolerate particular climatic conditions.
NATIVE SPECIES:
Descriptions are abbreviated; additional characters can be extracted from the key and synopsis.
