Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/804

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Stems slender, simple, erect, leafy at the base. Spikelets small, numerous, compressed, 1–3-flowered, densely crowded in 1–3 ovoid or cylindric terminal heads or spikes subtended by. 2–6 unequal linear leaf-like bracts. Glumes 4–7, distichous; the two lowest small, empty; the next, or rarely the two next, hermaphrodite and fruit-bearing; the upper ones male or the uppermost smaller and empty; in fruit the rhachilla falls away above the two lowest glumes. Hypogynous scales wanting. Stamens 1–3. Style continuous with the ovary, not thickened at the base; branches 2, filiform. Nut laterally compressed, smooth.

1. K. brevifolia, ''Rottb. Desc. et Ic.'' t. i, f. 3.—Rhizome creeping, elongate. Stems numerous from the rhizome, slender, 4–12 in. high or more. Leaves flat, grassy, usually shorter than the stems, $1⁄10$–$1⁄6$ in. broad. Bracts usually 3, spreading, similar to the leaves. Spikes solitary or rarely 2–3 together, broadly ovoid, greenish, ⅕–⅓ in. long. Spikelets about ⅛ in.; fertile flower usually solitary. Glume of fertile flower ovate, mucronate, eglandular, keeled; keel not winged above, 3-nerved; sides of glume with 3–4 striæ. Stamens 2. Nut ellipsoid, pale yellow-brown, about half as long as the glume.—''C. B. Clarke in Hook. f. Fl. Brit. Ind.'' vi. 588. K. monocephala, ''Cheesem. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xi. (1879) 434 (not of Rottb.)''.

Auckland—From Mongonui and Ahipara northwards to the North Cape, ''W. T. Ball! T.F.C.'' December–February.