Flora of New Zealand Series

Desvauxia strigosa R. Br. Prodr.  1810,  252.

Type locality: Australian.

Small, tufted annual, 1.5–7 cm. tall. Roots fine and fibrous. Lvs 1–3 cm. × c. 0.2 mm., filiform, hispid throughout their length with white, rigid, multicellular hairs; tips acicular, lamina broadening at the base to a membr. sheath. Flowering stems 2–6.5 cm. × c. 0.3 mm., very much > lvs, hispid with very fine tangled, white hairs. Glume-like bracts 2, or occ. 3, c. 3 mm. long, green or pinkish with a narrow membr. margin, ovate and spreading, hispid with long, rigid, multicellular hairs; awn glab., c. 1 mm. long with an acicular tip. Pseudanthia 4–8 in each bract, almost = bracts in length, each with 3 hyaline fringed scales unequal in length, one very much shorter, the 2 others sheathing respectively the ♂ and the ♀. ♂ 1 to each partial infl. ♀ 4–8 to each partial infl. connate and superposed in 2 rows or occ. appearing spirally arranged. Styles not connate. Seed c. 0.5 mm. long, obovate-oblong, blunt at the top, surface very faintly reticulated, brown with a dark tip at each end.

DIST.: S. Bluff Hill, and Invercargill.

Sandy ground near the coast.

FL. 12–1. FT. 1–3.