Meney, Pate & Dixon, New species of Restionaceae 
651 
terete branches and flattened irregular branchlets of a higher order in texture and 
surface similar to culms, sheaths usually narrower. Spikelets, branches and branchlets 
arising together giving the nodes a glomerose appearance. Male Spikelets sessile, 
clustered in axils of culm sheaths, or terminal on branchlets, 1-5 per cluster, broadly 
fusiform, 4-6 mm long, 1-1.5 mm broad, each subtended by 20-30 imbricate rigid 
hyaline glumes; glumes pale straw in colour, with a brown mucro, 3-3.4 mm long, 
1-1.2 mm wide. Male floivers sessile, 3-6 per spikelet; tepals 6, 3-6 mm long, linear- 
lanceolate; stamens 3, exserted. Female spikelets similar to males, fusiform, 4-5 mm 
long, 0.8-1 mm wide; glumes 4-7, closely adpressed, 1.5-3.5 mm long with a 
1.5-2.5 mm long mucro, uppermost glumes fertile, subequal, hairy on outer surfaces; 
lower glumes with broad, green flattened apex. Female flowers one per spikelet; tepals 
6, linear-lanceolate, 3-6 mm long; stigma unbranched, red 4-7 mm long, plumose. 
Fruit a uniovulate nut, 5 mm long, 1 mm wide, elongate with a blunt apex, outer 
fruit wall ribbed; seed brown to cream coloured. 
Flowering: August to October. Seed-shed: October to November. Seedlings: not 
encountered in habitat. 
Affinities: Desmocladus glomeratus is most similar to Desmocladus virgatus L.A.S. Johnson 
and B.G. Briggs ined., but lacks verticillate arrangement of culm branches and has 
sessile spikelets and a more lax habit than the latter species. 
Ecological Features: The species is known from only one location in sand over 
laterite in heathland at Howatharra Hill north-east of Geraldton. Plants are killed by 
fire and regenerate from seed. 
Conservation status: The species is in urgent need of further survey to determine 
the extent of its distribution and conservation status. For the present it should be 
gazetted as rare and endangered. 
Etymology: The specific epithet is derived from the Latin term glomeratus, formed 
into a ball, referring to the clustered arrangement of spikelets and branchlets. 
Harperia ferruginipes K. A. Meney & J. S. Pate, sp. nov. 
Planta dioica caespitosa, rhizomatibus reptantibus tomentosis, pilis ferrugineis, culmis 
valde ramosis, vaginis adpressis lato interior! pilis fasciculatis praeditis, spiculis 
singulis terminalibus vel axillaribus, numerosis in eadem culmo. 
Type: South-western Western Australia, S.W. Botanical Province between Geraldton 
(28°46'S n4°37'E) and Mullewa (28°32'S n5°30’E) Meney & Pate KM9m, 19 April 1994, 
(holotype KPBG; isotype PERTH). Growing in open heathland on red sandy loams. 
Habit: Plants dioecious forming dense low clumps with a stout creeping rhizome, 
clumps approximately 0.5 m tall, usually 30-80 cm across. Rhizome creeping with well¬ 
spaced culms (1-2 cm apart), 6-10 mm in diameter, densely villous with long red- 
brown to ginger hairs; scale leaves broadly triangular, overlapping covered with dense 
ginger hairs; cataphylls 8-14 mm long with covering of ginger hairs prominent above 
soil surface. Culms terete, hollow with distinctive multilacunar pith, yellow-green, 
30-60 cm long, 1.5-2.5 mm diameter, upper half of culms many-branched, sinuose, 
smooth; lower 2-3 internodes with fine covering of short ginger hairs, culm surface 
finely rugose; culm nodes more or less equidistant, 10-15 per culm; culm sheaths 
orange-brown when young, ageing dull grey, appressed, 8-15 mm long with purple 
ring at base, enclosing a tuft of ginger to white hairs borne at the nodes, lower culm 
sheaths with basal covering of ginger hairs; lamina narrow, spiny, divergent, 2-3 mm 
long, dark purple. Male spikelets mostly solitary, terminal or axillary, well-spaced, 
1-2 cm apart, numerous per culm, 3-8 per culm branchlet, ovoid, 4-6 mm long; 
glumes orange with a fringe of white hairs, bracts and glumes bearing spines, mucro 
