Machaerina muelleri (C.B.Clarke) T.Koyama APNI* Synonyms: Baumea muelleri (C.B.Clarke) S.T.Blake APNI* Cladium muelleri C.B.Clarke APNI*
Description: Slender, tufted perennial with short rhizome.
Culms compressed, nodeless, striate, glabrous, smooth, 10–60 cm high, 0.5–1.3 mm diam. Leaves basal; blade flat, usually shorter than culms, 2–3 mm wide; sheath straw-coloured, dull.
Inflorescence interrupted-oblong in outline, narrow, with distant slender ± drooping branches, 5–32 cm long, 1–2 cm diam.; lowest involucral bract much shorter than inflorescence. Spikelets few, usually 1-flowered, 6–8 mm long. Glumes 3 or 4, long-acute, mixed straw-coloured and red-brown, with margins glabrous or ciliate; fertile glumes 5–8 mm long. Anthers c. 2.2 mm long, excluding appendage c. 0.5 mm long.
Nut ellipsoid to obovoid, 3.0–3.5 mm long, 1.5–1.8 mm diam., smooth to colliculate, minutely hispid at extreme apex only, ± shining, dark brown to blackish.
Flowering: spring.
Distribution and occurrence: Coastal, south to Oxford Falls. Grows in damp coastal heath on sandy soils.
NSW subdivisions: NC
Other Australian states: Qld
Text by K. L. Wilson (1993); edited KL Wilson (Feb 2023) Taxon concept: Flora of NSW 4 (1993) as Baumea muelleri
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