8. SCHŒNUS, Linn.
Usually perennial herbs, of very various habit, stout, erect and rush-like, or slender and diffuse, rarely creeping. Leaves near the base of the stem or cauline, sometimes reduced to sheathing scales. Spikelets compressed, few-flowered, panicled or capitate or fascicled. Glumes more or less distichous, 3 or more outer ones empty, 1–4 succeeding ones hermaphrodite and fruit-bearing, uppermost male or empty; rhachilla elongated and flexuose between the flowering glumes, with the flowers seated in the alternate notches. Hypogynous bristles present or wanting. Stamens usually 3, rarely fewer or 4–6. Style slender, sometimes slightly thickened near the base; style-branches 3. Nut obovoid, ovoid, or oblong, trigonous.
A large genus of about 60 species, mainly from Australia and New Zealand, but a few are widely distributed in the temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere and 2–3 are Malayan. Of the 7 species found in New Zealand, 3 are endemic, the remaining 4 extend to Australia and Tasmania.
| * Stems densely tufted, erect, terete, rush-like. Leaves either reduced to appressed sheaths or a short erect lamina alone present. Spikelets in a narrow terminal panicle. | |
| Stems 1–2 ft., rather stout. Spikelets many, ⅓–½ in. long. Hypogynous bristles wanting. Nut trigonous, faces transversely rugose | 1. S. brevifolius. |
| Stems 1–3 ft., slender. Spikelets few or many, ¼ in. long. Hypogynous bristles present, equalling the nut or shorter than it. Nut obovoid, smooth | 2. S. Tendo. |
| Stems 1–2½ ft., very slender. Spikelets many, ¼–⅓ in. Hypogynous bristles wanting. Nut oblong, obtuse, not trigonous, white | 3. S. Carsei. |
| Stems 1–3 ft., slender. Spikelets few (2–8), ¼ in. Hypogynous bristles present, very long. Nut elliptic, trigonous, pale-brown | 4. S. pauciflorus. |
| ** Stems shorter, not so rigid, often diffuse. Leaves well developed. Spikelets fascicled or umbelled, sometimes solitary. | |
| Stems 2–6 in., creeping or diffuse. Leaves alternate, spreading. Spikelets 1–3 in the axils of the leaves | 5. S. axillaris. |
| Stems 6–14 in., slender, diffuse. Leaves mostly at the base of the stems, linear. Spikelets in irregular umbels or fascicles | 6. S. apogon. |
| Stems 1–12 in., slender, wiry, rigid. Leaves few at the base of the stems. Spikelets sessile in a dense head, sometimes few or solitary | 7. S. nitens. |
1. S. brevifolius, R. Br. Prodr. 281.—Rhizome short, stout, creeping. Stems rush-like, densely tufted, rigid, erect, terete, smooth and polished, 1–2 ft. high. Leaves reduced to 3 or 4 dark red-brown appressed sheaths at the base of the stem, the uppermost of which has a short rigid erect subulate lamina ½–1 in. long. Panicle narrow, 3–8 in. long; branches slender, erect; bracts at the base with appressed sheaths and a short erect lamina. Spikelets lanceolate, compressed, ⅓–½ in. long, 2–3-flowered, red-brown.
