242 CYPERACEAE. [Oreobolus. 
equal; the fourth, when present, minute, not much exceeding the nut. 
Hypogynous scales narrow-lanceolate, acute, serrulate. Stamens 3. Style- 
branches 3. Nut small, obovoid, obtuse, whitish or brownish.—Hook. f. 
Handbk. N.Z. Fl. (1864) 308; #1. Tasm. 11 (1860) 94; Benth. Fl. Austral. 
vii (1878) 346; Cheesem. Man. N.Z. Fl. (1906) 796; C. B. Clarke Ill. Cyp. 
(1909) t. ci, f. 1-5. 
SoutH Isuanp: Nelson—Mount Rochfort and other mountains near Westport, 
W. Townson! Westland—Arthur’s Pass, 7’. F.C. ; Kelly’s Hill, Petrie! Worsley’s Pass, 
Cockayne! Otago—Mountains above Lake Harris, 7’. Kirk / 2000-5000 ft. 
3. Q. peetinatus Hook. f. Fl. Antarct. 1 (1844) 87, t. 49.— Larger and 
vai ensofter than the two preceding species, sometimes forming masses 2-3 in, 
deep and a foot or more in diameter, Leaves conspicuously distichous, 
and often almost flabellately arranged, densely imbricating, equitant and 
sheathing at the base; blade $-?in. long, linear-subulate, obtuse, rigid, 
channelled in front; sheathing base longer and broader, 5-7-nerved. 
Peduncles terminal, short in the flowering stage, but elongating in fruit, 
and then often equalling or even exceeding the leaves. Spikelets usually 
solitary. Flowers and fruit very similar to those of O. pumilco—Hook. f. 
Fl. Nov. Zel. i (1853) 275. O. pumilio var. pectinatus C. B. Clarke in 
Cheesem. Man. N.Z. Fl. (1906) 797. 
Norrts Istanp: From the summit of Moehau (Cape Colville) to Mount Hikurangi 
(East Cape), Tongariro, and Ruapehu, and the Ruahine, Kaimanawa, and Tararua 
Mountains. Sours IsLtanp, Stewart Istanp: Abundant throughout in mountain 
districts. AUCKLAND AND CAMPBELL IsLANDS: Plentiful in open situations. 
Altitudinal range from 1500 to 4500 ft., but descends to sea-level in Stewart Island and 
the Auckland Islands. 
The strongly distichous leaves and larger size give this plant a different appearance 
from any state of O. pumilio I have seen. I have therefore restored it to the rank of 
a species. 
13. UNCINIA Pers. 18° 7 
Perennial herbs, usually tufted and grass-like, with fibrous roots. 
Culms erect, terete or obscurely trigonous, striate, leafy at the base. Leaves 
very narrow-linear, flat or involute, often keeled, margins usually scabrid. 
Spikelets unisexual, arranged in a simple linear or oblong spike; male 
terminal; females placed lower down. Glumes imbricated all round the 
axis, ovate or oblong or lanceolate, obtuse or acute or the lower ones awned, 
concave, 1-3-nerved. Male flowers with 3 stamens; filaments filiform in 
all the New Zealand species, flat and dilated in some others. Female 
flowers with the ovary included in a flask-shaped organ called the utricle 
or perigynium; style long, protruding; branches 3, filiform. Rhachilla 
produced beyond the mouth of the utricle into a long bristle hooked at the 
tip. Nut trigonous or subcompressed, enclosed in the persistent more or 
less enlarged utricle. 
A genus of about 30 species, found in New Zealand, Australia, Tasmania, New 
Guinea, Kerguelen and Amsterdam Islands, and America from Fuegia northwards to 
the West Indies, Mexico, and the Sandwich Islands. Of the 14 species found in New 
Zealand, 4 extend to Australia and Tasmania, of which one stretches as far as New 
Guinea, and another to Kerguelen; while one each is found in temperate South 
America and in the Sandwich Islands. The remaining 8 are endemic. The genus only 
differs from Carex in the rhachilla being exserted beyond the utricle in the shape of a 
hooked bristle. The New Zealand species are highly variable and most difficult of 
discrimination. U. purpurata, U. caespitosa, U. riparia, U. rupestris, and U. filiformis 
present an almost unbroken series of forms, and I doubt if any two observers would 
arrive at the same conclusions respecting them, even if they worked on the same 
material. 
