into a free ligule. Scape terminal, rigid, erect, longer than the leaves. Floral bracts 2 or 3, alternate, convolute, appressed, obtuse, each 1-flowered or the uppermost empty. Hyaline scales absent. Stamens 2. Ovary of 2 connate collateral carpels; style 1 to each carpel, filiform. Fruiting carpels 2, or 1 by abortion.—Handb. N.Z. Fl. 297.
South Island, Stewart Island: Not uncommon in subalpine bogs throughout. 2500–4500 ft. December–March.
Order XC. RESTIACEÆ.
Sedge-like or rush-like perennial herbs, either tufted or with a creeping rhizome usually covered with imbricated scales. Stems rigid, simple or branched, erect or flexuose. Leaves either few, radical, linear and sedge-like, or more often nearly or altogether reduced to convolute scales sheathing the stem; sheaths usually split to the base. Flowers diœcious, very rarely hermaphrodite, in spikes or racemes or panicles, each flower furnished at the base with a dry and rigid bract (glume) and sometimes 2 bracteoles. Perianth regular, of 6, rarely more or less, rigid or scarious erect segments. Male flowers: Stamens 3; filaments free or rarely connate into a column; anthers oblong, usually 1-celled. Rudimentary ovary occasionally present. Female flowers: Staminodia present or absent. Ovary 1–3-celled; styles as many as the cells, free or connate at the base, stigmatic on the inner side; ovules solitary in each cell, pendulous, orthotropous. Fruit either a 1–3-celled capsule with longitudinal dehiscence or an indehiscent nut. Seeds 1 in each cell, pendulous, albumen farinaceous; embryo small, remote from the hilum.
A small order of about 20 genera and 230 species, almost confined to South Africa and Australia, the only species found outside these countries being the three occurring in New Zealand, one in Chili, and one in Cochin-China. Thu species have no important uses or properties.
| Spikelets many-flowered, panicled. Ovary 3-celled. Fruit 3-angled, dehiscing at the angles | 1. Lepyrodia. |
| Spikelets many-flowered, panicled. Ovary 1-celled. Nut 3-angled, indehiscent | 2. Leptocarpus. |
| Spikelets few-flowered, female 1-flowered. Ovary 1-celled. Nut ovoid, terete, smooth | 3. Hypolæna. |
1. LEPYRODIA, R. Br.
Rhizome stout, creeping, scaly. Stems erect, simple or branched, terete. Leaves reduced to persistent or rarely deciduous sheathing scales. Flowers diœcious or monœcious, rarely hermaphrodite, in rather broad or narrow panicles, sometimes almost spicate, the inflorescence not conspicuously different in the two sexes. Glumes lanceolate, scarcely imbricate; bracteoles 2 at the base of each flower. Male flowers: Perianth-segments 6, glume-like or thin
