Flora of New Zealand Series

Rhizome far-extending, with reddish-purple scales. Stems 1-30 cm high, slender, with 1-4 basal leaves. Leaves < stems, 1-2.5 mm wide, flat. Involucral bracts 2-4, leaf-like, spreading. Inflorescence a solitary sessile spike, rarely 2-3 spikes, ovoid or globose, 4-8 × 3-7 mm, greenish. Spikelets numerous, ± 3 mm long, each with 2 glumes but only 1 glume fertile, tightly clustered, much-compressed. Glumes membranous, with green keel produced to an excurrent recurved mucro, lower glume with 3 distinct nerves on each side, slightly < upper fertile glume which has 2 distinct nerves on each side. Stamen 1. Style-branches 2. Nut ± ½ length of glume, biconvex, obovoid or oblong-obovoid, light yellow-brown.

Rhizomatous, grassy, turf-forming, it sometimes forms dense extensive swards on damp flats, as in parts of North Auckland and the Bay of Plenty. At times it invades poorer pasture on damp soils, is grazed by both sheep and cattle, and is tolerant of trampling. It occurs in some lawns in the Westport district, gradually replacing the sown sward.

K., N. North Auckland; South Auckland; Bay of Plenty; Taranaki - Waitara. S. Nelson - Nikau (near Westport). (Widespread in most tropical and subtropical countries)

First record: Cheeseman 1879b:434, as "Kyllinga monocephala Rottb."

First collection: Mangonui, W. T. Ball, Dec., 1876 (AK 98043).

Formerly known in N.Z. as Kyllinga monocephala auct. non Rottb. and Kyllinga brevifolia Rottb.