Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/769

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Juncus.]
JUNCACEÆ.
729

base of the inflorescence usually 1 or 2, short, leafy, sometimes small and scarious. Flowers small, 1/10 in. long, chestnut-brown, crowded in many-flowered heads at the ends of the branches of the cymes. Perianth- segments subequal or the outer rather shorter, obiong-lanceolate, acute. Stamens 3. Capsule equalling the perianth or very slightly longer than it, obovoid, trigonous, mucronate. Seeds numerous, minute, ovoid, very minutely reticulated.—Raoul, Choix, 40; Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 263; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 290; Benth. Fl. Austral. vii. 125; Buchen. Monog. Junc. 433.

North and South Islands, Chatham Islands, Stewart Island, Auckland Islands: Abundant throughout. Sea-level to 3000 ft. November–January.

An abundant plant in Australia and Tasmania, also found in Chili.


9. J. cæspiticius, E. Mey. in Lehm. Pl. Preiss. ii. 47; var. bracteatus, Buchen. Monog. Junc. 439.—A tufted perennial 6–18 in. high; roots numerous, fibrous. Leaves all radical, much shorter than the stem, very numerous, grassy, erect, gradually tapering from a long and broad sheathing base to a long subulate acuminate point, margins involute. Flowering- stems long, slender, naked. Cyme contracted into a dense conglobate head ½–1½ in. diam.; bracts at the base 1–3, leafy, much exceeding the cyme. Flowers rather longer than in J. planifolius, about ⅛ in. long, crowded in many-flowered fascicles. Perianth-segments unequal, the 3 outer distinctly shorter. Stamens 6, about half the length of the segments. Capsule equalling the perianth or slightly exceeding it, ovoid-trigonous, obtuse, mucronate. Seeds minute, but rather larger than in J. planifolius, ovoid, smooth or very indistinctly reticulated.—Benth. Fl. Austral. vii. 126.

North and South Islands: From the Auckland Isthmus to Otago, rather local. November–January.

Closely allied to J. planifolius, with which it has been confounded by most New Zealand botanists. It can be distinguished by the narrower involute leaves, densely congested cymes, rather larger flowers, the stamens always 6 in number, and in the fewer and larger smoother seeds. The typical state, which is common in Australia, has the cyme laxly branched, with shorter bracts.


10. J. antarcticus, Hook. f. Fl. Antarct. i. 79, t. 46.—A small densely tufted perennial 1–4 in. high; roots long, fibrous. Leaves very numerous, all radical, equalling or shorter than the stems, suberect or curved, linear-subulate, flat towards the base, semiterete or obscurely canaliculate above, cylindric towards the apex, obtuse, pith not jointed within; sheathing base long, broad, margins scarious. Stem terete, smooth, naked, terminating in a 2–8-flowered head, rarely a second head is produced lower down. Bracts ovate, membranous, rarely longer than the flowers. Flowers crowded,