Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/802

762 thin, rigid, tip acute. Perianth-segments 6, very narrow-linear, acute. Stamens 3; anthers hnear-oblong. Female spikelets soHtary within the uppermost sheaths, 1–3-flowered. Perianth-segments 6 or 4, very small, the inner not much longer than the ovary, broadly ovate, thin and hyaline. Style-branches 3. Nut broadly ovoid, terete, with a thick and swollen base.—Calorophus elongatus, ''Lab. Pl. Nov. Holl.'' ii. 78, t. 228 ''(in part); Hook. f. Fl Nov. Zel. i. 267; Handb. N.Z. Fl.'' 297.





Grassy or rush-like herbs, usually perennial. Stems solid or rarely slightly hollow, often trigonous, sometimes compressed or terete. Leaves alternate, mostly radical, few or many, sometimes wanting or reduced to sheathing scales; sheaths closed, not split to the base. Flowers hermaphrodite or unisexual, minute, solitary and sessile in the axils of small imbricated bracts (glumes), which are aggregated into few- or many-flowered (rarely 1-flowered) spikelets. Spikelets either solitary and terminal, or arranged in spikes, racemes, panicles, or clusters. Glumes rigid or scarious or membranous, concave, distichous or imbricated all round, persistent or deciduous, 1 or 2 (rarely more) at the base of each spikelet empty. Perianth wanting or represented by few hypogynous bristles or scales. Stamens 1–3, rarely 4–6, hypogynous; filaments linear, flat, often elongating after flowering; anthers usually exserted from the spikelet and pendulous, linear, basifixed, 2-celled. Ovary entire, 1-celled, in Carex and its allies enclosed in a peculiar flask-shaped organ called the utricle or perigynium formed of 1 or 2 modified bracteoles; style short or long, 2–3-cleft, divisions stigraatie on the inner side; ovule solitary, basal, erect, anatropous. Fruit a small indehiscent nut (in Carex enclosed in the utricle), lenticular or compressed or more often trigonous. Seed erect; testa membranous; albumen farinaceous; embryo minute, at the very base of the albumen.

A very large order, found in all parts of the world, both temperate and tropical, and in almost all stations, but most abundant in marshes, or by the margins of lakes and rivers. It is closely allied to grasses, being chiefly dis-