Carex divulsa Stokes
Dense grass-like tussocks; rhizome thick, short, with dark brown scales soon becoming fibrous. Stems (15) -20-60- (150) cm high, slender and wiry, 3-angled, scabrid on angles. Leaves 2-3 mm wide, < stems, flat to channelled, rather harshly scabrid, sheaths dull, light creamy-brown. Inflorescence 5-12 cm long, often with 1-2 very short branches at base; spikes ± 10, sessile, light green, distant below, 3-5 uppermost more crowded; bracts filiform. Spikes few-flowered, androgynous, male flowers at top. Glumes much < utricles, ovate, acuminate, colourless-hyaline with a green midrib. Utricles 4-5 × ± 2 mm, ovate, plano-convex, nerveless, light brown, tapering to a short bifid beak with scabrid margins, stipe minute. Stigmas 2. Nut obovoid, biconvex.
N. Throughout. S. Nelson - Takaka, Nelson City, Richmond; Marlborough - Nidd Stream; Canterbury - near Cheviot. In damp pasture and in damp places along roadsides or edges of paddocks. (Europe, Asia, N. Africa)
First record: Allan 1940: 221. Allan cited C. muricata var. subramosa as a synonym.
First collection: "Hillsboro, near Onehunga" T. F. Cheeseman, Dec. 1918 (AK 96849, 96851).
This tall-growing, densely tufted sp. is troublesome and increasing in grassland on both flat and hill country in N. Id. C. divulsa shows varying degrees of palatability in different habitats and districts, and on occasions has been rated as highly palatable in dairying pastures on fertile moist river flats.
C. × axillaris was recorded by Cheeseman (Man. N.Z. Fl. 1925, 1059) from "Hobson' s Bay, near Auckland, H. Carse!". Carse' s specimen "Hobson' s Bay, Auckland, end Dec., 1919" (AK 96850) is C. divulsa.
C. remota L. was recorded by Allan (T.R.S.N.Z. 65, 1935, 3) for "Neighbourhood of Auckland City and suburbs, roadsides, waste places, and pastures, M. Hodgkins!" and Allan (Handbk Nat. Fl. N.Z. 1940, 309) notes that C. remota"resembles C. divulsa but the spikelets bear male flowers at their bases not at their apices". No specimens determined as C. remota have been found but a specimen of C. divulsa, Remuera, Hodgkins (CHR 3903) has a note in Hodgkins' hand "it seems . . . to resemble . . . C. remota".
