Calorophus Labill.
Plants dioec., rarely monoec. Spikelets distant towards the ends of the branches, at each node solitary and sessile, or in pairs with one sessile, the other shortly stalked. Male spikelets 1–6-fld (in the N.Z. sp.), female spikelets 1-fld; upper floral bracts imbricate; bractlets wanting. ♂ with 6 narrow, glume-like tepals; stamens 3, anthers 1-celled. ♀ with 6–(4) hyaline tepals; staminodia 3 or 0; styles 3 or 2, free, or connate at the base; ovary 1-locular with a single, pend. ovule. Fr. a small, ovoid or obovoid, ind. nut. Perennial herbs. Culms glab., much-branched, often flexuose, from a creeping rhizome. Lvs reduced to persistent, bract-like sheaths. Genus of 3 spp. 2 endemic to Australia, and C. minor occurs in both Australia and N.Z. Type sp.: C. elongata Labill., a Tasmanian endemic.
Bentham Fl. Aust. 1878, 237 reduced Calorophus to a section of Hypolaena R. Br. 1810 and his treatment was followed by many authors. (Hypolaena has been conserved against Calorophus if the two are considered to be congeneric). Calorophus has male spikelets solitary and sessile, or paired with 1 sessile and 1 stalked, while Hypolaena has male spikelets all stalked in a small panicle. Johnson and Evans (Contr. N.S.W. nat. Herb., Flora Ser. 24–25, 1966, 27) note also that Calorophus differs strikingly from Hypolaena "in both habit and inflorescence as well as in the anatomy of the culms".
