254 Transactions.— Botany. 
green, brown towards base; spurious ligula bi-lunate or kidney-form. 
Spikelet 6 inches long, slender, upper portion 14-14 inches male, bracts 
(often 8) leaf-like, long, outer 12-16 inches long 1 line wide, very filiform 
at tips, scabrid, crumpled towards top, fugacious ; utricles decussate, dis- 
tant on rhachis about 1 line apart, squarrose, black, 24 lines long, spindle- 
shaped, truncate and striped at base, acuminate, shining ; bristle 34 lines 
long from tip of utricle, greenish ; hook long, light brown, thickened and 
black at curve; glume narrow, narrower than utricle, linear-ovate-acumin- 
ate, 54 lines long, obtuse, glabrous, shining, light brown with a thick 
central nerve, tri-nerved at base, fugacious ; stigmas long, slender. 
Hab. Skirts of low woods near Norsewood, County of Waipawa ; 
March, 1884: W.C. 
Obs. This plant wears a striking appearance when its fruit is ripe, 
widely different to that of its ripening state; for the light-coloured and 
long glumes having fallen away, the black and distant utricles stand out 
patent on the rhachis, which, in clear tranquil and undisturbed situations, 
arrests the eye immediately from their extreme novelty. The fruits, how- 
ever, fall off at a very slight touch, often clinging disagreeably by their 
hooks to clothing, hair, etc. 
Genus 14. Carex, Linn. 
1. Carex quadrangulata, sp. nov. 
Plant large, tufted, diffuse, dark green. Culms rather slender, 8 feet 
6 inches long, drooping, smooth, glossy and finely striate, trigonous but 
4-angled owing to the lower angle being double or channelled throughout, 
and scaberulous on both edges. Leaves shorter than culms, 2 feet 6 inches 
long, 4 inch wide, channelled, linear, acuminate, margins and upper surface 
finely seabrid, keeled, keel scaberulous. Spikelets few, under 1 inch long, 
the lower 2 single, distantly spiked along the culm, the upper and terminal 
one a short compound panicle, bearing the male spike at top, slender, 1 inch 
long; peduncles 3, 14-2 inches long, erect and nodding, filiform, com- 
pressed, scabrid, with 2 small adpressed sheathing brown bracteoles ; the 2 
lower bracts very long, 12-15 inches, foliaceous, sheathing, with a small 
transverse scarious bracteole below aperture of sheath on the outside. 
Glumes as long as the utricles, broadly ovate, bicuspidate, awned with a 
stout central nerve, membranous at margins, light coloured minutely striped 
with red. Utricles short, about 1 line long, broadly ovate, turgid above, 
flattish beneath, bicuspid, scabrous on both margins near tip, glabrous, 
shining, dark brown. &Stigmas 8. 
Hab. Sides of water pools, open parts of the forest, Norsewood, County 
of Waipawa; 1884: W.C. 
