''Machaerina juncea'', commonly known as bare twig-rush or tussock swamp twig rush, is a sedge in the sedge family,
Cyperaceae
The Cyperaceae are a family of graminoid (grass-like), monocotyledonous flowering plants known as sedges. The family is large, with some 5,500 known species described in about 90 genera, the largest being the "true sedges" genus ''Carex'' w ...
, that is native to Australia, New Zealand, and New Caledonia.
Description
The grass-like sedge is rhizomatous and perennial. It typically grows to a height of and colonises easily.
[ The woody and shortly creeping rhizome has a diameter of and is covered in light brown papery, loose, ]imbricate
Aestivation or estivation is the positional arrangement of the parts of a flower within a flower bud before it has opened. Aestivation is also sometimes referred to as praefoliation or prefoliation, but these terms may also mean vernation: the ar ...
bracts
In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, especially one associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis or cone scale. Bracts are usually different from foliage leaves. They may be smaller, larger, or of ...
. The terete
Terete is a term in botany used to describe a cross section that is circular, or like a distorted circle, with a single surface wrapping around it.Lichen Vocabulary, Lichens of North America Information, Sylvia and Stephen Sharnoff/ref> This is us ...
, rigid, erect, smooth, glaucous
''Glaucous'' (, ) is used to describe the pale grey or bluish-green appearance of the surfaces of some plants, as well as in the names of birds, such as the glaucous gull (''Larus hyperboreus''), glaucous-winged gull (''Larus glaucescens''), g ...
culms arise as crowded tufts along rhizome and have one to two distant nodes. The leaves are light brown or reddish sheathing bracts.[ It blooms between October and March producing brown flowers.][ Each stiff, erect, spike-like and sparingly branched ]inflorescence
An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed o ...
has a length of and has a much shorter sheathing bract underneath. The red-brown coloured spikelets have a length of and contain one or two flowers. The oblong to ovoid shaped nut that forms later has a length of and is dark brown to black and orange near the base.[
]
Taxonomy
The species was first formally described by the botanist Tetsuo Koyama in 1956 as part of the work ''Taxonomic Study of Cyperaceae'' as published in ''Botanical Magazine (Tokyo)''.
Distribution
It is found in New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
, commonly found on the North Island and less frequently on the South Island. It is found in coastal areas to lower montane in and around swamps, salt marshes, lake margins and river estuaries.Western Australia
Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...
it is found along coastal areas in the Mid West
The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...
, Wheatbelt, Peel, South West
The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...
, Great Southern and Goldfields-Esperance where it grows in water-logged sandy soils.
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q15549904
juncea
Flora of Western Australia
Flora of New Zealand