Carex fretalis Hamlin
Type: WELT, 40685, Bluff Hill, north side, wet ground among stones and alien grasses, B. G. Hamlin 976, 28 Feb., 1967.
Tufts dense, ± stiff, light yellow-green. Culms 10–15 cm. × 0.5 mm., terete, glab., occ. elongating at maturity and slightly drooping at the tip; basal sheaths light brown. Lvs ± =, or us. > culms, c. 1 mm. wide, plano-convex, margins scabrid towards the strongly cirrhose tip. Spikes 4–5–(7); single terminal male spike very slender; remaining spikes female, 1–2.5 cm. × 4–5 mm., ± oblong, ± distant, erect, the uppermost sessile or shortly pedunculate, the lowest on a slender peduncle up to 1 cm. long. Glumes (excluding awn) us. slightly <, but sts = utricles, ovate-acuminate, hyaline but closely dotted with red-brown striae, the cream midrib thickened and produced to an awn c. as long as glume or longer. Utricles c. 3.5 × 1 mm., plano-convex, ovoid, turgid, tawny brown, us. with distinct paler brown nerves; scarcely narrowed to a glab. beak but crura relatively long and rarely scabrid on margins; stipe relatively thick, c. 0.5 mm. long, very pale brown. Stigmas 3. Nut c. 1.5 mm. long, trigonous, oblong-obovoid, dark grey.
DIST.: S. Southland, near Foveaux Strait and on Centre Id in the Strait. St.
C. fretalis is related to C. comans but invariably has pale yellow-green lvs with strongly curled tips and light brown, never purple-brown, basal sheaths. The spikes are fewer and broader than those of C. comans and the larger utricles are us. glab. and scarcely narrowed to a beak in contrast to the distinct scabrid beak in utricles of C. comans.
