long and narrow almost pungent teeth. Styles 3. Nut small, obovoid, trigonous.—R. Br. Prodr. 243; Benth. Fl. Austral. vii. 448; Cheesem. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xvi. (1884) 441. C. Forsteri, Hook. f. Handb. N.Z. Fl. 315, in part (not of Wahl).
Var. fascicularis.—Rather taller and stouter. Spikelets 2–4 in. long, often pale red-brown when mature, further apart and on longer peduncles, that of the lowest sometimes 4–8 in. long. Utricles broader and more truncate at the base, suddenly narrowed into a longer linear stalk; beak narrower.—C. fascicularis, Boott in Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 283.
North and South Islands: Abundant throughout in marshes or swampy woods. Sea-level to 3000 ft. November–February.
Widely spread through the temperate regions of both hemispheres. Mr. C. B. Clarke is inclined to maintain the var. fascicularis as a distinct species.
Order XCII. GRAMINEÆ.
Annual or perennial, erect or creeping herbs, rarely (bamboos) shrubby or arborescent. Stem (culm) branched at the base, cylindrical or slightly compressed, jointed, generally hollow between the joints; joints (nodes) solid, swollen. Leaves alternate, distichous, usually long and narrow, entire, parallel-veined; sheath long, split to the base on one side, at its junction with the blade usually furnished with an erect membranous appendage called the ligule. Flowers hermaphrodite or unisexual, minute, solitary in the axils of small bracts (glumes) which are imbricated in 2 opposite rows, forming little spikes or spikelets. Spikelets usually many, ai-ranged in spikes, panicles, or fascicles. Glumes placed alternately on each side of the axis (rhachilla) of the spikelet, the first or lowest 1–6 (commonly the first 2) empty and known as empty glumes or outer glumes, or simply as glumes. The succeeding 1 or several are called flowering glumes, each of them having in its axil a very short branchlet bearing on its upper side a 2-nerved bractlet called the palea; the branchlet ending in a flower, which is thus enclosed by the flowering glume and palea. Occasionally 1 or more glumes at the top of the spikelet are empty or enclose rudimentary flowers only. Perianth wanting, unless represented by 2 (rarely 3) minute scales (lodicules). Stamens usually 3, rarely 1, 2, or 6, hypogynous; filaments capillary; anthers pendulous, versatile, fugacious. Ovary 1-celled; styles 2 or rarely 3, free or connate at the base, feathery with simple or branched stigmatic hairs; ovule solitary, erect, anatropous. Fruit a seed-like utricle or grain (caryopsis) either free within the flowering glume and palea, or adhering to one or both. Seed erect, usually adherent to the membranous pericarp, rarely separable (Sporobolus); albumen copious, farinaceous; embryo very small, roundish, on one side of the base of the albumen.
