North Island: Abundant in forests from the North Cape to the East Cape and Taranaki, less plentiful from thence southwards to Wellington. South Island: Lowland districts in Nelson and Marlborough, and along the West Coast from Collingwood to Okarito and Milford Sound, not common. Sea-level to 2500 ft. Kiekie; Tawhara (the edible bracts); Ureure (the fruit). September–November; ripe fruit in May.
The leaves are occasionally plaited into kits or baskets by the Maoris. The white fleshy bracts surrounding the spadices are sweet and sugary, with an aromatic flavour, and are often eaten; the fruit less commonly so. I have seen no description of F. inclinans, Benn. Pl. Jav. Rar. i. .32, said to be found in New Zealand.
Order LXXXVI. TYPHACEÆ.
Marsh or water plants, with creeping rhizomes, solid cylindrical stems, and long linear leaves sheathing at the base. Flowers minute, monœcious, densely crowded in globose or cylindric spikes or spadices, male spadices always uppermost. Perianth either wanting or of minute scales or hairs. Male flowers: Stamens 1–7; filaments slender, distinct or connate; anthers basifixed, erect, linear or oblong. Female flowers: Ovary superior, sessile or stalked, 1- or rarely 2-celled; styles as many as the cells, linear, persistent; stigma unilateral, papillose; ovules solitary. Fruit dry or spongy, indehiscent. Seed solitary, pendulous; albumen copious, fleshy or farinaceous; embryo terete, axile.
A small order, cosmopolitan in its distribution, consisting of the 2 genera found in New Zealand and from 20 to 25 species.
| Flowers in dense cylindric spikes, the females enveloped in soft downy hairs | 1. Typha. |
| Flowers in globose heads. Perianth of linear scales | 2. Sparganium. |
1. TYPHA, Linn.
Tall reed-like marsh or aquatic herbs. Leaves all radical, long, linear, erect, spongy. Flowers monœcious, densely crowded in a terminal cylindrical spike furnished with a few deciduous spathaceous bracts; spikes either continuous or separated into two distinct parts by a broad or narrow interval, the upper portion male, the lower female. Male flowers of 1–7 stamens intermixed with capillary membranous scales; filaments short or long, distinct or connate; anthers linear-oblong, basifixed, 1-celled, longitudinally dehiscent; connective produced at the tip. Female flowers with or without a linear-spathulate bracteole at the base. Ovary long-stalked, the stalk furnished with numerous silky hairs, 1-celled, narrowed into a slender style; stigma unilateral, linguiform or spathulate; ovule solitary, pendulous. Fruit very minute, fusiform or narrow-ovoid; pericarp membranous or coriaceous, at length laterally dehiscent. Seed the same shape as the pericarp; albumen farinaceous; embryo axile.
Species 9 or 10, spread over most temperate and tropical regions.
