Carex maculata Boott

Boott, Francis M.B. (1846) Transactions of the Linnean Society of London 20: 128. Type: In Ins. Ceylon, Chiliarch. Walker.

Tufted sedge with a short monopodial rhizome. Stems erect and obtusely trigonous, up to 60 cm tall.

Leaves crowded, subbasal, shorter to as long as the stems, 2-8 cm wide, revolute to flat, lamina margin with short hairs; leaf sheaths ferruginousm or spotted reddish-brown.

Spikes 3-5, erect, with the upper 2-4 crowded; uppermost male, 1.5-4.5 cm long, remaining female, 0.7-4 cm long and densely flowered. Peduncles obtusely trigonous. Bracts of female spikes foliaceous.Glumes with green 3-veined keel, rest of glume foxy red. Utricles compressed and shrunken into longitudinal ridges or trigonous with a longitudinal ridge on the ventral face, minutely papillose.

Achene ellipsoid to suborbicular, conspicuously trigonous with shallowly concave faces, densely alveolate, 1.5-2 mm long.

Features not available.

Occurs in NEQ, CEQ and in south eastern Queensland and NSW. Altitudinal range from near sea level up to 750 m. Grows in rainforest, notophyll and mesophyll vine forest, Eucalypt forest and in Melaleuca and Licuala swamps. Also occurs from India to China and Japan and through Malesia.