Exocarya sclerioides (F.Muell.) Benth. APNI* Synonyms: Exocarya scleroides (misspelling) APNI*
Description: Tall, slender, tuft-forming perennial, with creeping rhizome. Culms trigonous, smooth or scabrous, to c. 1 m high and c. 3 mm diam.
Cauline leaves to 35 cm long, to 6.5 mm wide; sheaths closed, with glabrous or minutely ciliate mouth.
Inflorescence slender, to 40 cm long, with slender branches to 22 cm long; involucral bracts shorter than to exceeding inflorescence. Spikelet-like units 2.5–4 mm long, with the lowest 3–6 pseudospikelets reduced to 1 broad empty glume c. 1 mm long, the upper pseudospikelets bisexual or functionally male, only the uppermost maturing a nut. In each fertile pseudospikelet, the lowest glume papery, obtuse, very dark red-brown to blackish, with whitish erose margins; the 2 keeled glumes and the 2 flattened glumes pale brown, c. 2 mm long.
Nut much exserted, narrow-ovoid, c. 4 mm long, c. 2.5 mm diam., yellow-brown, red-dotted, the remains of the pseudospikelet forming a small tuft at its base. Style base black, larger than the ovary at the time of flowering but not conspicuous at maturity, forming a small blackish stipitate apex to nut.
Distribution and occurrence: NC north from Dorrigo; also in Qld and Papua-New Guinea. In rainforest.
NSW subdivisions: NC
Other Australian states: Qld
Text by K.L. Wilson (1993)
Taxon concept: KL Wilson in Flora of NSW vol. 4 (1993)
APNI* Provides a link to the Australian Plant Name Index (hosted by the Australian National Botanic Gardens) for comprehensive bibliographic data
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