Flora of New Zealand Series

Type locality: Australian. Type: BM.

Rhizome pale brown, often very slender, 1–3 mm. diam. Culms (1)–3–12 cm. long, setaceous, us. much < 0.5 mm. diam., rather densely tufted; sheaths very thin and membr., transparent, red-veined, the upper sheath colourless and rather inflated below the oblique orifice. Spikelet 2.5–3 × c. 1mm., few-fld, ovate, acute. Glumes 1.5–2 mm. long, ovate, obtuse. Hypog. bristles us. 0, occ. 2–3. Stamens 3. Style 3-fld. Nut c. 1 × 0.5 mm., narrowly obovoid, obscurely trigonous, almost white, each face with 3–4 thick, vertical ribs joined by fine transverse bars; the persistent style very small, much constricted at base.

DIST.: N. Scattered localities in Northland, Waikato and the Volcanic Plateau. S. Canterbury, and at Lake Te Anau, Fiordland.

Damp sand hollows among dunes and on damp sandy shores of lakes, tarns and streams; sea level to 750 m. altitude.

Cheeseman (Man. N.Z. Fl. 1906, 768), Svenson (Rhodora 31, 1929, 184) and other authors, used the name E. acicularis (L.) Roem. et Schult., but Blake (Proc. roy. Soc. Qd 50, 1939, 107) considered that the Australian and N.Z. plants were distinct from that Northern Hemisphere sp.