Flora of New Zealand Series

C. McMahoni Petrie in T.N.Z.I.  56,  1926,  6.

Type locality: Akaroa. Type: K, Raoul 208.

Densely tufted, dark green or rarely yellow-green. Culms (20)–50–90–(120) cm. × 0.5–1 mm., trigonous, glab. at base, scabrid below infl., at maturity elongating, much > lvs and drooping from above; basal sheaths dark grey-brown. Lvs < culms, 2–4 mm. wide, double-folded, soft, grassy, margins very finely scabrid. Infl. of 5–7 sessile spikes, closely contiguous at the top of the culm, rarely a slender spikelet on a long filiform peduncle arises from the axil of the uppermost lf; upper 1–(2) spikes occ. wholly male, more often female in the upper part, or female throughout; remaining spikes smaller, all female, 1–4 cm. × 4–7 mm. Glumes (excluding awn) = or < utricles, very broadly ovate, often emarginate, membr., colourless with few to ∞ small red-brown striae, the pale cream midrib produced to a finely scabrid awn. Utricles 2–3 × c. 1.5 mm., plano-convex, elliptic-obovoid, light reddish brown, us. with very distinct pale brown nerves, slightly winged, us. scabrid on the margins and often on both surfaces of the upper half; beak 0.5–1 mm. long, bifid, orifice finely scabrid; stipe c. 0.3 mm. long, pale cream. Stigmas 2. Nut c. .5 mm. long, biconvex, obovoid, light to dark brown.

DIST.: N. Near Auckland, on the west coast southwards from New Plymouth, and in the Wairarapa. S. Marlborough, Akaroa, Dunedin. St.

Coastal scrub c. 100–450 m. altitude.

C. McMahoni. Type: WELT, 1980, Edgecumbe Point, Marlborough Sounds, J. H. McMahon, Jan., 1924; isotype at CANTY.

C. raoulii resembles C. testacea in having spikes closely contiguous at the top of the culm, but differs from that sp. in having double-folded instead of channelled lvs and in the terminal spike being us. partly female and the utricles us. scabrid on both surfaces as well as on the margins (see also Hamlin, T.R.S.N.Z. 84, 1957, 681-83).