Classification
Class
Magnoliopsida Brongn.
Order
Poales Small
Family
Cyperaceae Juss.
Genus
Schoenus L.
 Nomenclature
Scientific Name:
Schoenus tendo (Hook.f.) Banks & Sol. ex Hook.f., Handb. New Zealand Fl. 298 (1864)
Synonymy:
  • ≡ Chaetospora tendo Hook.f., Bot. Antarct. Voy. II. (Fl. Nov.-Zel.) Part I, 273 (1853)
  • = Cyperus tendo Banks & Sol. nom. inval.
Vernacular Name(s):
Wīwī
 Description

Rush-like; rhizome short, up to 4 mm. diam. Culms (40)–50–100–(120) cm. × c. 1mm., very thickly crowded, erect or drooping, light green, shining. Lvs reduced to sheathing mucronate bracts, dark red-purple, almost black, the mucro more elongated in the uppermost bracts; mouth of sheath fringed with cobwebby hairs. Panicle (1.5)–4–10–(12) cm. long, very narrow, with ± distant fascicles of 3–4 branchlets, each fascicle subtended by a sheath 0.5–1.5 mm. long, ciliate at the mouth; branchlets flexuous, laterally compressed and toothed along edges, each bearing a solitary spikelet or branched again. Spikelets 5–8 mm. long, 2–4-fld, linear-lanceolate, dark brown, almost black. Glumes 10–13, ovate-lanceolate, acute, margins ciliate towards the apex with tangled woolly hairs, the lower 6–8 glumes shorter, empty, 2–4 succeeding glumes fertile, the 2 upper glumes empty. Hypog. bristles 3–6, threadlike, < or > nut. Stamens 2. Style-branches 2, occ. 3. Nut c. 1.5 × 1mm., unequally biconvex, obovoid, obtuse to retuse, smooth, pale cream or light brown.

[From: Moore and Edgar (1970) Flora of New Zealand. Volume 2.]

 Biostatus
Indigenous (Endemic)
 Bibliography
de Lange, P.J.; Rolfe, J.R.; Barkla J.W.; Courtney, S.P.; Champion, P.D.; Perrie, L.R.; Beadel, S.N.; Ford, K.A.; Breitwieser, I.; Schönberger, I.; Hindmarsh-Walls, R.; Heenan, P.B.; Ladley, K. 2018: Conservation status of New Zealand indigenous vascular plants, 2017. New Zealand Threat Classification Series. No. 22. [Not Threatened]
de Lange, P.J.; Rolfe, J.R.; Champion, P.D.; Courtney, S.P.; Heenan, P.B.; Barkla, J.W.; Cameron, E.K.; Norton, D.A.; Hitchmough, R.A. 2013: Conservation status of New Zealand indigenous vascular plants, 2012. New Zealand Threat Classification Series 3. Department of Conservation, Wellington. [Not Threatened]
Hooker, J.D. 1852–1853 ("1853"): The Botany of the Antarctic Voyage of H.M. Discovery Ships Erebus and Terror in the Years 1839–1843, under the command of Captain Sir James Clark Ross. II. Flora Novae-Zelandiae. Part I. Flowering plants. Lovell Reeve, London.
Hooker, J.D. 1864: Handbook of the New Zealand Flora: a systematic description of the native plants of New Zealand and the Chatham, Kermadec's, Lord Auckland's, Campbell's and Macquarie's Islands. Part I. Reeve, London.