Common name: spreading rope-rush, wire rush, lesser wire rush
Empodisma minus (Hook.f.) L.A.S.Johnson & D.F.Cutler APNI* 
Description: Dioecious perennial herb, tufted, rhizome ascending.
Culms green, semi-terete, wiry, much-branched and usually slightly flexuous, 15–200 cm long, c. 1 mm diam.
near the base, erect when short, procumbent (or even pendent over rocks) when longer. Sheaths 5.5–12 mm long, greenish, closely appressed, axillary hairs present; lamina strongly reflexed, subulate, 1–6.5 mm long. Male spikelets axillary, solitary and sessile, or 2 or 3 together, 1 sessile and the other(s) shortly pedicellate, few-flowered, 4–7 mm long; glumes mucronate. Male flowers: anthers exserted on slender filaments. Female spikelets solitary in the upper axils, sessile, 1-flowered, c. 5.5–7.5 mm long; glumes mucronate to acuminate. Female flowers: styles exserted and recoiled.
Fruit c. 2 mm long, sessile on a thickened receptacle.
Distribution and occurrence: Common in bogs, swampy places, and on wet creek banks, from sea level to alpine bogs, always in acid soils, also on wet cliffs in mountainous districts, sometimes forming thick, tangled masses.
NSW subdivisions: NC, CC, SC, NT, CT, ST
Other Australian states: Qld Vic. Tas. S.A.
Text by A. L. Quirico & B. G. Briggs
Taxon concept: Flora of NSW 4 (1993)
APNI* Provides a link to the Australian Plant Name Index (hosted by the Australian National Botanic Gardens) for comprehensive bibliographic data
***The AVH map option provides a detailed interactive Australia wide distribution map drawn from collections held by all major Australian herbaria participating in the Australian Virtual Herbarium project.
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