Flora of New Zealand Series

Type locality: Head of Lake Wakatipu, 1,100 ft. Type: AK, 2616, D. Petrie.

Tufts stiff, spreading, yellow-green, 25–70–(100) cm. high. Culms 10–30–(45) cm. × 1–2 mm., trigonous, slightly scabrid; basal sheaths dark brown. Lvs much > culms, 3.5–5–(6) mm. wide, double-folded, coriac., margins scabrid. Spikes 4–8, the uppermost approximate, the lower 2–3 often more distant; 1–(2) terminal spikes occ. male, but more often partly or almost wholly female; remaining female spikes 1.5–4 cm. × 4–7 mm., cylindrical, sessile or shortly pedunculate. Glumes c. ⅔ length of utricles, ovate, often emarginate, brown, membr., with a pale brown midrib produced to a short scabrid awn. Utricles 3–4 × c. 1.5 mm., plano-convex to unequally biconvex, ellipsoid or obovoid, faintly nerved to distinctly ridged, pale greenish brown spotted with fine red-brown striae, slightly narrowed to a < 1 mm. long with scabrid margins and orifice. Stigmas 2. Nuts slightly < 2 mm. long, plano-convex, oblong or obovoid, dark brown.

DIST.: S. Southwards to c. lat. 45º, very rare in Westland.

Damp places in tussock grassland and on river flats, us. inland from 750–1,350 m. altitude.