Exocarya scleroides (F.Muell.) Benth. APNI* Synonyms: Exocarya sclerioides (F.Muell.) Benth., orth. var. APNI*
Exocarya scleroides 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
The epithet was originally spelt as 'scleroides' and that original spelling has to be used in line with the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (Turland et al. 2018). See the similar example, Art. 60 Ex. 39, there for the reasoning behind this decision, at https://www.iapt-taxon.org/nomen/pages/main/art_60.html#Art60.10.
Text by K.L. Wilson (1993); edited KL Wilson (March 2022)
Taxon concept: KL Wilson in Flora of NSW vol. 4 (1993), as E. sclerioides
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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