Carex hirta L.
Tufts 40-60 cm high from an often far-extending rhizome. Stems 3-angled, smooth, erect. Leaves 2-4- (9) mm wide, < stems, flat or ± channelled, both surfaces with ± scattered fine white hairs; upper sheaths densely pubescent near junction with lamina, ± glabrous below, lower sheaths dark red-brown. Inflorescence with long wide leaf-like bracts below; lower spikes distant. Male spikes 2-3, 1.5-2 cm × ± 3 mm, sessile, fusiform; glumes obovate, ± mucronate, hairy, red-brown. Female spikes 2-3, 2-4.5 cm × 3-6 mm, on long, erect, usually half-ensheathed peduncles; glumes < utricles, ovate, hyaline, tapering to a long green scabrid awn. Utricles ± 6 × 2 mm, ovoid, greenish-brown, distinctly nerved, hairy; beak ± 2 mm long, deeply bifid, scabrid; stipe 0. Stigmas 3. Nut obovoid, trigonous, stipitate.
N. Palmerston North; in Festuca arundinacea on rough street margin. S. Marlborough - Havelock; established about edge of salt flats. (Europe, N. Africa and temperate Asia)
First record: Healy 1944:230.
First collection: "Havelock, Marlborough, pure stand behind beach sand," A. J. Healy, 19.11.1942 (CHR 51693).
C. hirta differs from all other spp. in N.Z. in the obviously soft-hairy laminae, sheaths, and utricles.
This strongly rhizomatous sp. is said, overseas, to occur in wet, non-saline places but the two known N.Z. occurrences are anomalous in that at Palmerston North the plant was found in a footpath, and at Havelock, it has persisted for many years in and about brackish swamps. It could be a nuisance should it become more widespread.
