A common plant in the north temperate zone, but south of the equator only known from New Zealand. It is easily distinguished by the slender wiry habit, usually dense spike-like panicles, small spikelets male at the top, and ovoid turgid long-beaked utricles, smooth on one side, but ribbed on the other.
9. C. appressa, R. Br. Prodr. 242.—Very stout, harsh and rigid. Rhizome short, creeping. Culms densely tufted, 1–3 ft. high, stout, with the leaves often ½ in. diam. at the base, rigid, grooved, acutely triquetrous with the angles sharply scabrid, leafy at the base. Leaves numerous, usually exceeding the culms, ⅕–½ in. broad, hard, rigid, acutely keeled, grooved; keel and margins scabrid with minute recurved denticles. Spikelets small, very numerous, few-flowered, androgynous, male flowers at the top, collected in a long and narrow spike-like panicle 3–7 in. long, the primary branches erect and appressed to the rhachis; bract obsolete. Glumes broadly ovate, acute, concave, membranous, brownish with a pale line down the centre; margins not silvery. Utricle shortly stipitate, broadly ovate, plano-convex, conspicuously many-nerved on each face, contracted into a short 2-toothed beak; margins broad, incurved, conspicuously ciliate-denticulate. Styles 2. Nut elliptic-ovoid, biconvex.—Raoul, Choix, 40; Hook. f. Fl. Antarct. i. 90; Fl. Tasm. ii. 99; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 313; Boott, Ill. Car. i. 46, t. 119, 120. C. paniculata, F. Muell. Veg. Chath. Is. 57; Benth. Fl. Austral. vii. 440 (not of Linn.). C. paniculata var. appressa, Cheesem. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xvi. (1884) 427.
South Island: Otago—Near Dunedin, Petrie! G. M. Thomson! Catlin's River, Petrie; Milford Sound, Hector. Stewart Island: G. M. Thomson! Chatham Islands: H. H. Travers! (Panicle larger and laxer, with paler glumes—perhaps a different species, but specimens very immature.) Auckland and Campbell Islands, Antipodes Island: Abundant, Sir J. D. Hooker, Kirk! November–February.
In my revision of the New Zealand species I followed Baron Mueller and Mr. Bentham in reducing this and the two following species to the northern C. paniculata, to which all three are certainly very closely allied. C. appressa differs mainly in its greater size, harsher and more rigid habit, broader leaves, longer and more rigid panicle with the branches closely appressed, darker glumes without silvery margins, and by the more strongly nerved utricles, with broader margins. Although these differences are not important, they appear to be constant, and on the whole it is perhaps best to treat both C. appressa and the two following species as distinct from C. paniculata, although closely related to it. C. appressa is also found in temperate Australia and Tasmania.
10. C. virgata, Sol. ex Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 282.—Culms densely tufted, 1–3 ft. high, trigonous with the angles sharply scabrid, grooved, leafy at the base. Leaves numerous, much exceeding the culms, ⅛–¼ in. broad, harsh and rigid, grooved, sharply keeled below, flat above; margins scabrid with numerous sharp recurved denticles. Spikelets small, very numerous, few-flowered, androgynous with the male flowers at the top, arranged in a long and slender spike-like panicle 6–18 in. long; primary
