Wilson, A new Australian species of Carex (Cyperaceae) 
571 
Fig. 2. Utricle of Carex klaphakci: a, adaxial surface; b, abaxial surface. 
Conservation status: 3K; the species is not known from any national parks or reserves, 
but it is a very slender species and could well be overlooked because it grows mixed 
with other sedges and rushes such as Empodisma minus in swamps. 
Notes: The long rhizome, extremely long slender culms, short leaf-blades, small 
inflorescence, and large, tapering utricle are distinctive features amongst the 
Australian species of Carex. These features place C. klaphakei in Kukenthal's section 
Divisae (Kiikenthal 1909). There are no other members of that north-temperate section 
native to Australia, but C. divisa is introduced in Victoria and possibly in Tasmania 
(it is also naturalised in New Zealand (Healy & Edgar 1980: 157)). C. klaphakei is 
grossly similar to C. divisa but it differs from the latter in the following features: the 
inflorescence in the new species is more slender; the utricle is larger, more gradually 
tapered to the apex, and less shining (cf. Figure 2 and the illustration of the utricle 
of C. divisa in Wilson 1994: fig. 71 e); the rhizome is not as woody. C. klaphakei 
resembles another introduced species, C. disticha Hudson, in having a long rhizome 
but that species differs in having a bigger inflorescence with up to twenty spikes, 
the arrangement of sexes in the spikes being rather variable (see notes in Wilson 
1994: 350), and a narrowly winged utricle. 
In the 'Flora of New South Wales' treatment (Wilson 1993), this species can be 
slotted in as Carex species no. 20a, between C. tereticaulis F. Muell. and C. arenaria L. 
This does not reflect a close relationship to either of those species but rather its 
