Slender perennial.. Leaves 8–12 cm. long, 0.5–1 mm. wide; sheaths rugulose, tapering to apex and expanded at the base, with smooth scarious margins which are ciliate particularly towards the base; ligule absent; lamina linear, flattened, rugulose; apex solid, acuminate.. Peduncles 35–50 cm. long, ± 0.5 mm. in diameter, terete, smooth; spike subspherical, 5–7 mm. in diameter at maturity, dark brown; sterile bracts suborbicular, the lowest ± 2 mm. in diameter; fertile bracts ± 4 mm. in diameter, thinly coriaceous, 3-nerved, pale olive-brown, apex rounded, often splitting.. Lateral sepals arcuate, 4–4.5 mm. long, the keel bluntly ciliate-denticulate, most markedly so towards the middle; corolla yellow, tube ± 5 mm. long, lobes elliptic, ± 4 mm. long, 2 mm. wide.. Anthers ± 1 mm. long; staminodes bifurcate, the branches long-ciliate.. Ovary ellipsoid, ± 3 mm. long; style ± 3 mm. long, 3-branched; stigmas many-lobed.. Seeds broadly elliptic, ± 0.3 mm. long, 0.25 mm. in diameter, with more than 20 longitudinal ridges.. Fig. 4.
Home