Carex kaloides Petrie
Original localities: "Carrick range, Otago, 4,000 feet; Deep Stream, Otago, 1,000 feet." Lectotype: WELT, 21726, Carrick Range, 900 m., D. Petrie; isotype at K.
Rhizomatous; reddish yellow or yellow-green clumps, often forming large tussocks. Rhizome c. 5 mm. diam., woody, covered with dark brown, fibrous remnants of lf-sheaths. Culms singly from the rhizome but approximate, 30–75–(100) cm. × c. 1 mm., drooping above, trigonous, glab. below, very finely scabrid on the angles close under the infl.; basal sheaths dull dark grey-brown or yellow-brown. Lvs < culms, 10–40–(60) cm. × 1–3.5 mm., channelled, keel well-marked, margins scabrid towards the tip. Infl. (5.5)–7–18 cm. long, a compound spike, or, in larger specimens, a slender panicle with distant, appressed branchlets, spikes 10–20–(30), pale straw-coloured, ± distant, lower spikes and branchlets subtended by a membr. long-awned bract with awn and keel often scabrid, lowermost bracts occ. lf-like, > panicle. Spikes androgynous, lower spikes often wholly female, the upper with 2–3 male fls at the top, or rarely all spikes predominantly male. Glumes > utricles, lanceolate, acuminate or awned, membr., light creamy brown with a pale cream centre and very broad transparent margins. Utricles 4–5 × c. 1 mm., plano-convex, rather finely nerved; beak tapered, 1.5–2 mm. long, winged with serrate margins; stipe c. 1 mm. long, occ. not much contracted. Stigmas 2. Nut c. 2 mm. long, plano-convex to biconvex, oblong, smooth, dark brown.
DIST.: S. On the eastern side to lat. 46º.
In drier ground above swamps and takes and on river flats from 250–1,050 m. altitude.
CHR 77216, Molesworth, L. B. Moore, 18/4/1952, has utricles up to 7.5 mm. long.
C. kaloides is very similar to C. muelleri but is larger in all respects and has a narrowly branched paniculate infl. and not a spicate one.
