Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/824

784

Perennial herbs. Stems stout or slender, terete or compressed, sometimes leafy throughout, sometimes at the base only, or the leaves reduced to sheathing scales. Leaves terete or compressed, more rarely vertically flattened and equitant at the base. Inflorescence paniculate. Spikelets numerous, rarely few, 1–3- or rarely 4–6-flowered, the lowest flower always perfect and fruit-bearing. Glumes imbricate all round, 1–4 outer empty, smaller than the succeeding flowering ones. Hypogynous bristles usually wanting. Stamens 3. Style long, linear; base often dilated but continuous with the nut; style- branches 3, rarely 2. Nut ovoid or oblong, terete or obscurely trigonous or tricostate, smooth, crowned by the adnate base of the style.