Flora of New Zealand Series

Manchurian wild rice

Robust, stout perennials, to 3 m, with strong rhizomes and large, rather narrow, purplish panicle. Cataphylls broad. Leaf-sheath glabrous, many-nerved, spongy and honey-combed with numerous transverse septa beneath the stiff epidermis, pale greenish, straw-coloured or light brown to purplish; margins papery. Ligule 25-40 mm, nerved, smooth, acute, entire or later fimbriate. Collar conspicuous abaxially and separating sheath and blade. Leaf-blade 50-120 × 1-2.5 cm, linear-lanceolate, light green, tough, midnerve much thickened abaxially below, glabrous, margins scabrid; tip pungent. Culm to 2 cm diam., internodes glabrous. Panicle 30-70 cm, with sparsely scabrid pulvinate branches with long white hairs in axils, all branches and spikelets ascending, upper branches with ♀ spikelets, pedicels slender, capillary, tips cupule-like equally wide, sometimes short-ciliate; lower branches with ♂ spikelets and also ♂ spikelet at times among ♀ spikelets in middle branches. ♂ spikelets: lemma 12-15 mm, nerves 7, raised, purplish, linear-lanceolate, membranous, very finely scabrid on and between nerves, long-acuminate to shortly (c. 2 mm) awned. Palea c. 10.5 mm, 3-nerved, sparsely scabrid on keel and between nerves above, margins wide, hyaline. Lodicules 0.75 mm. Stamens 6; anthers (5)-6-7 mm, bright orange-yellow, tailed. ♀ spikelets: lemma 15-20 mm, 7-nerved, linear, chartaceous, greenish to sometimes slightly purplish, scabrid on nerves and very finely scabrid between nerves, awn scabrid, erect 12-30 mm. Palea 10-13 mm, 3-keeled, nerves scabrid, interkeels faintly scabrid. Gynoecium: ovary 1.5 mm, beaked; stigma-styles c. 20 mm, stigma white exserted beyond lemma apex. Caryopsis c. 6 × 1.5 mm. Fig. 3.

N.: North Auckland, Waikato, Hauraki (Turua), Wellington (Waikanae). Lagoons, river banks or tidal flats, roadside ditches and damp paddocks.

Naturalised from eastern Asia.

A notorious aquatic reed especially around Dargaville.

Fig. 3 Zizania latifolia S♂, spikelet of ♂ floret, × 4.5; S♀, spikelet of ♀ floret, × 4.5; L♂, lemma of ♂ floret, × 4.5; L♀, lemma of ♀ floret, × 4.5; P♂, palea of ♂ floret dorsal view, × 4.5; P♀, palea of ♀ floret dorsal view, × 4.5; Lo♂, lodicules of ♂ flower, × 20; Lo♀, lodicules of ♀ flower, × 20; O, ovary, styles and stigmas of ♀ flower, × 4.5; St, anther of ♂ flower, × 9. © All rights reserved. [Image: 4X7U]