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Telopea Vol. 6(4): 1996 
Habit: Plants dioecious, clumped or spreading on short rhizomes with densely grouped, 
intertwining culms. Clumps often up to 2 m across, 0.5 m high. RJuzonie shortly creeping, 
1-3 mm diameter, dark red-brown and covered with tufts of orange-brown to cream 
hairs; scale leaves chocolate-brown, shiny, broadly triangular, 5-7 mm long, tightly 
overlapping; cataphylls clasping, dark brown, up to f.5 cm long, closely appressed. 
Culms unbranched, terete, solid, yellow-green, finely marbled, 30-50 cm long, 
0.5-0.9 mm diameter, tightly coiled; lower culm intemodes with dense indusium of 
felt-like, straw-coloured hairs; culm nodes equidistant in upper portions 3-5 cm apart, 
up to 1 cm apart in lower portions; culm sheaths flared from base, truncate, red-brown, 
straw-coloured at apex, 8—10 cm long, deciduous with age; lamina short, deciduous, 
0.5 mm long. Male spikelets sessile, single, axillary at upper culm nodes, almost totally 
enclosed by subtending culm sheath, 3-9 per culm, elongate, 5—7 mm long, glumes 
erect and spiny with an inconspicuous terminal fringe of white hairs, rust-brown, 
broadly lanceolate 2.5 mm; mucro dark brown, up to 2 mm long. Male flowers up to 10 
flowers per spikelet; tepals 6, membranous, linear-lanceolate, 1.6—2.0 mm long, stamens 
3, exserted. Fetmle spikelets 3-9 per culm, sessile and single on upper culm nodes, 
almost entirely enclosed by culm sheaths, deciduous, elongate, 5-7 mm long; glumes 
spiny with terminal fringe of hairs, 5 mm long, red-brown; mucro 4 mm, strongly 
reflexed. Female floivers several per spikelet, sessile or shortly pedicellate 1-3 per spikelet; 
tepals 6,2-3 mm long, broadly elongate, translucent-straw-coloured; style unbranched 
stigma plumose, red, 3 mm long Fruit a unilocular nut. 
Flowering: Winter/Spring (May-September). Seed-shed: August-September. Seedlings: 
not observed. 
Affinities: L. spiralis is very similar to L. preissianiis in general habit and morphology, 
but L. spiralis has more compact, narrower rhizomes and much smaller male spikelets 
scarcely emerging from culm sheaths. Female spikelets of L. spiralis have a distinctive 
reflexed spiny mucro on bracts and glumes whereas these are erect in L. preissianiis. 
Ecological features: Known only from a few populations on deep yellow sands in 
dry heath in Frank Hann National Park. Starch is present in rhizomes and culms 
and the plants probably recover after fire. 
Conservation status: Possibly highly localized and edaphically restricted to small 
pockets of yellow sands amongst predominantly deep white sands. Clearly in need 
of further survey. 
Etymology: The specific epithet is from the Latin spiralis, coiled, referring to the culms. 
Leptocarpus crassipes J. S. Pate & K. A. Meney, sp. nov. 
Planta dioica rhizomatibus breviter repentibus, culmis dense fasciculatis, vaginis 
truncatis, nitidis, caducis, spiculis sessilibus solitariis, caducis. Spiculae foemineae 
glumis spinosis, spinis prominentibus, reflexis. 
Type: South-western Western Australia, S.W. Botanical Province, Kent River between 
Denmark (34°58'S 117°2rE) and Walpole (34°59’S 116°44'E), Pate & Meney KM913, 
5 January 1991, (holotype KPBG; isotype PERTH). Growing in permanently inundated 
swampy depressions. 
Habib Plants dioecious, stout, erect 80-110 an tall with tufted rhizomes. Rhizomes light- 
brown, branched and shortly creeping with dense laterally spreading root mass and marked 
bulb-like swelUngs at points of attachment with culm bases, basal diameter 5 mm, intemodes 
with dense, soft covering of tridiomes; strongly aerenchymatous with trabeculae of marginal 
and central aerenchyma connecting with that of culm bases and roots; scale leaves truncate, 
8-10 mm broad at base, 15 mm long, pale brown with dark brown striations; cataphylls 
similar to scale leaves in size, shape and colour but with scarious margins; mucro 2-3 mm 
