Flora of New Zealand Series

Type locality: Tasmanian. Also in Australia.

Densely tufted, us. reddish. Culms rooted at the base, the rest floating, up to 60 cm. long, c. 0.5 mm. diam., flaccid, lfy, much branched. Lvs (2)–6–10 cm. long, distant or tufted, filiform, flaccid, margins slightly scabrid towards lf-tip; sheath very long, green or red-brown, margins membr., produced at the tip to form a ligule. Spikelets 7–12 mm. long, 2–4-fld, narrow-linear, solitary, terminal, subtended by a glume-like bract, or rarely 2–3 spikelets distant at the end of the culm, the lower ones subtended by more lf-like bracts. Glumes 3–4, lanceolate, obtuse, membr., light red or pale cream; all fertile or the lowermost empty. Hypog. bristles 0. Stamens 3. Style-branches 3. Nut c. 2 × 1 mm., obovoid, brown with black patches or entirely black.

DIST.: N.

In bogs in the central Volcanic Plateau, and on N.W. Ruahine Range to 1,000 m. altitude.

HYBRIDISM

Cockayne and Allan (Ann. Bot. 48, 1934, 14) record S. concinnus × nitens. Some specimens described by Kirk as S. moorei (see above under S. nitens var. concinnus) seem intermediate between  var. nitens and  var. concinnus but as no normal specimens of the two vars were collected at the same time it is uncertain whether these divergent specimens represent hybrids.