Caustis blakei subsp. blakei Kük. ex S.T.Blake APNI*
Description: Perennial with short rhizome.
Culms smooth, 20–60 cm long, 2.3–3.5 mm diam.
Leaf sheaths dark red-brown to dark grey-brown. Inflorescence with 10–20 distant clusters of branches, 20–90 cm long, ultimate branches straight or slightly flexuous, numerous in dense clusters, with many sterile and leaf-like. Spikelets 1- or 2-flowered, 6–8 mm long. Glumes 3–5, long-acute, often long-mucronate, dark brown, glabrous, margins sparsely puberulous or glabrous, 5–7.5 mm long. Stamens 3 or 4; anthers 3.0–5.0 mm long, excluding appendage c. 0.7 mm long. Style 3-fid; style base yellow-brown, 1–2.5 mm long.
Nut ellipsoid to narrow-obovoid, 4.5–6.5 mm long, 2.3–2.8 mm diam., whitish to straw-coloured, punctulate, coarsely and irregularly reticulate.
Flowering: spring.
Distribution and occurrence: Grows in dry sclerophyll forest and woodland, on sandy soils; coastal fixed dunes and ranges south to Crowdy Bay.
NSW subdivisions: NC
Other Australian states: Qld
Because of its 'leafy' inflorescence, this may be confused with Baloskion tetraphyllum.
Text by KL Wilson 1993; edited KL Wilson (March 2014) Taxon concept:
The single subspecies in NSW. Characters and distribution as for the species in NSW. |
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