Flora of New Zealand Series

C. tahoata Hamlin in Rec. Dom. Mus., Wellington  6,  1968,  109.

Original localities: "in montibus Novae Zelandiae e.g. ad Tokano et ad Omatangi ins. bor. et in alpibus ins. Australis". Type: LD, "Tokano ad lacum Taupo", S. Berggren, Feb., 1875. WELT 11883, "in alpibus, prov. Canterbury", S. Berggren, Feb., 1874, is a syntype.

Tufts dense, harsh, (25)–30–75–(90) cm. high, light green or reddish. Culms (0.5)–1–2 mm. diam., trigonous or subtrigonous, smooth or occ. slightly scabrid towards infl.; basal sheaths dark brown, red-, yellow-, or grey-brown, nerves ± distinct. Lvs ∞, > culms, 1.5–2.5 mm. wide, channelled, margins closely scabrid. Spikes 4–8, upper approximate, ± sessile, lower 1–3 us. more distant, shortly pedunculate, erect; terminal spike male, occ. with female fls intermixed, remaining spikes female, often male at base; lower spikes (1)–2–2.5─(4) cm. × 4–6 mm., upper spikes progressively smaller. Glumes ± = or slightly < utricles, orbicular-ovate, obtuse, membr., creamy brown or darker flecked, midrib light brown, 3-nerved, not reaching margin or in some glumes produced to a very short mucro. Utricles (2)–2.3–2.8 × c. 1.5 mm., crowded on spike, spreading when ripe, unequally biconvex or almost plano-convex, elliptic-ovoid, yellow-brown at base, upper half with darker red-brown markings and us. scabrid margins, shining, smooth, abruptly narrowed to a small cream bifid beak c. 0.2 mm. long, margins and orifice faintly scabrid. Stigmas 2. Nut slightly > 1 mm. long, biconvex, ellipsoid, cream at first, later very dark brown.

DIST.: N., S. Throughout.

From sea level to 1,200 m. altitude on margins of swamps, on boggy river flats, in tussock grassland or in damp places in forest.

C. tahoata. Type: WELT, 11890, Reporoa Bog, northern Ruahine Mountains, stream banks with C. secta; c. 1,200 m., B. G. Hamlin 598, 2/3/1956. Specimens from the Volcanic Plateau (North Id) on which C. tahoata was based differ from lowland North Id C. dipsacea in "shorter stature, more slender leaves, shorter and fewer female spikes and smaller utricles" (Hamlin, 1968). The glumes of C. tahoata are also darker red-brown than those of North Id C. dipsacea However these differences are not clearly marked in South Id specimens which show a range of size and of glume colour between plants matching lowland North Id C. dipsacea and plants matching C. tahoata from the Volcanic Plateau. Because it is difficult to assign many South Id plants to one or other species C. tahoata is treated as a synonym of C. dipsacea.

C. dipsacea resembles C. flagellifera and C. testacea in habit and in the channelled lvs, but the utricles in C. dipsacea are quite distinct, being biconvex, only minutely beaked, and spreading widely when ripe. The almost orbicular glumes of C. dipsacea are also scarcely or not awned in contrast to the distinctly awned glumes of C. flagellifera and C. testacea.