Flora of New Zealand Series

C. comans Bergg. var. stricta Cheesem. in T.N.Z.I. 24, 1892, 415.

Type locality: Lake Tekapo, 2,500 ft. Type: AK, 2739, T. F. Cheeseman, Jan., 1883; isotype at WELT.

Tufts stiff, strikingly pale, buff-coloured or almost white, 25–35 cm. high. Culms 5–20 cm. × c. 0.5 mm., smooth, occ. with a deep groove; basal sheaths dark brown to purple-red. Lvs ∞, much > culms, slightly < 1 mm. wide, plano-convex, rigid, grooved, margins scabrid. Spikes 3–6; terminal spike male; remaining spikes female, 0.5–2 cm. × 3–5 mm., rather distant, upper spikes ± sessile, lower spikes on narrow, flattened, scabrid peduncles. Glumes (excluding awn) slightly < utricles, broadly ovate, acute, pale cream with a few scattered fine brown striae, membr., nerves beside midrib often indistinct, awn long, narrow, scabrid. Utricles 2.5–3 × c. 1.5 mm., plano-convex, almost subtrigonous, elliptic-ovoid, very pale brown, nerved on the convex face; beak c. 0.5 mm. long, deeply bidentate with spreading crura, margins and orifice scabrid. Stigmas 3. Nut c. 1.5 mm. long, trigonous, oblong-ovoid, light grey-brown.

DIST.: S. Canterbury, Mackenzie Country; North Otago, near Kurow and at Hyde.

Very dry ground in short-tussock grassland, 200–750 m. altitude.

Occ. the culms elongate to 40–50 cm. and become > leaves and drooping.

Distinguished from C. comans by the almost white lvs, pale cream glumes and stiffer habit.