Carex filamentosa Petrie
Original localities: "Table Hill, Stewart Island; W. J. Murdoch! High lands at Port Pegasus; T. Kirk! High lands at head of Paterson Inlet; H. Guthrie-Smith!" Type: WELT, 11964, Stewart Island, T. Kirk.
Dense, filiform, pale green or reddish tufts with ∞ slender stolons. Culms 3–12 cm. × c. 0.5 mm., terete, faintly striated. Lvs up to twice the length of the culms, c. 0.5 mm., or rarely up to 1 mm. wide, plano-convex, nerved on the abaxial surface, smooth on the adaxial surface, very finely scabrid towards the tip. Infl. of (2)–3–4 spikes crowded at the top of the culm, or the lowermost somewhat distant; the uppermost spike male, extremely slender; remaining spikes female, shortly pedunculate, occ. with male fls at the top; bracts subtending spikes, long, lf-like and filiform. Glumes < or occ. = utricles, ovate, membr., pale cream, occ. brown- or red-flecked, the distinct midrib us. produced to a smooth or very finely scabrid awn. Utricles 2.5–3 × c. 1.5 mm., plano-convex or subtrigonous, elliptic-lanceolate, light brown with reddish brown markings towards the beak, distinctly nerved; beak hardly narrowed, c. 0.5 mm. long, margins smooth, shallowly bifid; stipe minute. Stigmas 3. Nut c. 1.5 mm. long, trigonous, obovoid, red-brown.
DIST.: S. Southland, rare. St.
From c. 300–800 m. altitude.
WELT 14639, Stewart Island, H. Guthrie-Smith, 1913 and specimens later made from the same plant in cultivation in Petrie's garden at Epsom, Auckland, are more slender than other specimens of C. filamentosa and the spikes are paler.
