short spreading hairs. Scapes radical, slender, hispid like the leaves. Floral bracts 2, close together, ovate, awned at the tip, concave, spreading, hispid with long hairs. Flowers from 3 to 8 within each bract, each flower with 3 hyaline scales, the scales unequal in length, the largest one usually as long as the bract, the others shorter. Stamen 1, exserted. Carpels from 3 to 8 in each flower, superposed and connate in 2 rows; styles as many as the carpels, free almost to the base.—Benth. Fl. Austral. vii. 207; Kirk in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxiii. (1891) 442.
South Island.—Otago—Bluff Hill, Kirk! H. J. Matthews! December–January.
A common Australian and Tasmanian plant.
2. C. minima, T. Kirk in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxiii. (1891) 441.—A minute glabrous densely tufted plant, forming flat moss-like patches. Stems very short, ¼–½ in. high. Leaves equalling or rather shorter than the scape, distichous, linear-subulate, dilated into broad equitant membranous sheaths at the base. Scape short, stout. Floral bracts 2, opposite, ovate, erect, the outer one shortly awned. Flowers 1 to each bract, one of them with a stamen, the other usually without, filament very long. Hyaline scales wanting. Carpels from 2 to 5 to each flower, connate in 2 rows; styles as many as the carpels, connate at the base.
South Island: Westland—Shores of Lake Brunner, Kirk! Otago—Lake Te Anau, Petrie! January–March.
Very closely allied to C. pallida, but a smaller stiffer plant, with more numerous carpels to the flowers.
3. C. pallida, Cheesem.—Forming compact pale-green cushion-shaped masses. Stems short, densely packed, ½–1½ in. high, leafy throughout. Leaves closely imbricate, distichous, ⅙–⅓ in. long; sheath half the length of the leaf or more, white and transparent, membranous, glabrous; lamina laterally compressed, ensiform-lanceolate or subulate, acute. Scape terminal, usually shorter than the leaves. Floral bracts 2, close together, unequal, the lower one the largest. Flowers 2, the upper one always with a stamen, the lower one frequently without, filament very long, the anther far exserted. Ovary of 1–3 (rarely 4) superimposed and connate carpels; styles as many as the carpels, connate at the base.—Gaimardia pallida, Hook. f. Fl. Antarct. i. 86. Alepyrum pallidum, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 268, t. 62c; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 296.
North Island: Ruahine Mountains, Colenso. South Island: Otago—Maungatua, Mount Kyeburn. Clinton Valley, Blue Mountains, Petrie! Campbell Island, Sir J. D. Hooker, Kirk! December–March.
Originally described as a Gaimardia, then transferred to Alepyrum, and replaced in Gaimardia by Bentham in the "Genera Plantarum." But the structure of the flowers is not that of a true Gaimardia, and its nearest allies, are undoubtedly C. minima and C. viridis.
