# Manual of the New Zealand Flora/Typhaceæ

Additions and Corrections
Order LXXXVI. TYPHACEÆ.
Marsh or water plants, with creeping rhizomes, solid cylindrical stems, and long linear leaves sheathing at the base. Flowers minute, monœcious, densely crowded in globose or cylindric spikes or spadices, male spadices always uppermost. Perianth either wanting or of minute scales or hairs. Male flowers: Stamens 1–7; filaments slender, distinct or connate; anthers basifixed, erect, linear or oblong. Female flowers: Ovary superior, sessile or stalked, 1- or rarely 2-celled; styles as many as the cells, linear, persistent; stigma unilateral, papillose; ovules solitary. Fruit dry or spongy, indehiscent. Seed solitary, pendulous; albumen copious, fleshy or farinaceous; embryo terete, axile.
A small order, cosmopolitan in its distribution, consisting of the 2 genera found in New Zealand and from 20 to 25 species.
| Flowers in dense cylindric spikes, the females enveloped in soft downy hairs | 1. Typha. |
| Flowers in globose heads. Perianth of linear scales | 2. Sparganium. |
1. TYPHA, Linn.
Tall reed-like marsh or aquatic herbs. Leaves all radical, long, linear, erect, spongy. Flowers monœcious, densely crowded in a terminal cylindrical spike furnished with a few deciduous spathaceous bracts; spikes either continuous or separated into two distinct parts by a broad or narrow interval, the upper portion male, the lower female. Male flowers of 1–7 stamens intermixed with capillary membranous scales; filaments short or long, distinct or connate; anthers linear-oblong, basifixed, 1-celled, longitudinally dehiscent; connective produced at the tip. Female flowers with or without a linear-spathulate bracteole at the base. Ovary long-stalked, the stalk furnished with numerous silky hairs, 1-celled, narrowed into a slender style; stigma unilateral, linguiform or spathulate; ovule solitary, pendulous. Fruit very minute, fusiform or narrow-ovoid; pericarp membranous or coriaceous, at length laterally dehiscent. Seed the same shape as the pericarp; albumen farinaceous; embryo axile.
Species 9 or 10, spread over most temperate and tropical regions.
​1. T. angustifolia, Linn. Sp. Plant. 971.—Very variable in stature, 3–8 ft. high or more. Leaves as long as the flowering-stems or sometimes exceeding them, rather narrow, ⅕–½ in. broad, rarely more, expanded at the base into a broad sheath often more than a foot in length, plano-convex or convex on both sides. Spike variable in length; male portion usually from 2 to 6 in. long, in some varieties contiguous to the female part, in others separated from it by an interval sometimes as much as 1 in. long, axis of the spike furnished with reddish-brown hairs mixed with the flowers; female portion 3–8 in. long, ⅓–¾ in. broad. Female flowers furnished at the base with a linear spathulate bracteole, the hairs on the pedicel of the ovary shorter than the stigma.—A. Rich. Fl. Nouv. Zel. 99; A. Cunn. Precur. n. 319; Raoul, Choix, 41; Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 238; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 276. T. latifolia, Forst. f. Prodr. n. 336 (not of Linn.); Hook. f. Handb. N.Z. Fl. 772.
Kermadec Islands, North and South Islands: Abundant in marshy places throughout. Sea-level to 2000 ft. Bulrush; Raupo. December–March.
Almost cosmopolitan. The Australian and New Zealand forms are placed by Graebner (Das Pflanzenreich, Heft 2) under var. Brownii (T. Brownii, Kunth) and var. Muelleri (T. Muelleri, Rohrb.). The first of these includes the larger and coarser states, with much of the habit of T. latifolia, and, like it, with the male and female spikes contiguous. It differs, however, from T. latifolia in the female flowers being bracteolate at the base. Var. Muelleri is smaller, and usually has the male and female spikes separated by a distinct interval.
The pollen was formerly collected by the Maoris, made into cakes with water, and then baked and eaten; the starchy rhizome was also used for food in times of scarcity. The leaves were employed for constructing the walls of their houses, or whares, and are still used for the same purpose.
2. SPARGANIUM, Linn.
Marsh or aquatic herbs. Rhizome creeping. Stems erect or floating, simple or the inflorescence alone branched. Leaves crowded at the base of the stem, distichous, linear-elongate, erect or floating, sheathing at the base. Flowers monœcious, crowded in superposed usually remotely placed globose heads subtended by leafy bracts; the upper heads male, the lower female. Perianth of 3–8 spathulate membranous scales. Male flowers: Stamens 2–3, rarely more; filaments long or short, distinct or variously connate; anthers linear-oblong, 4-celled, longitudinally dehiscent. Female flowers: Ovary sessile or nearly so, 1–2-celled, produced into 1–2 long or short styles; stigma unilateral; ovule solitary, pendulous. Fruit obovoid, spongy, tipped by the persistent style; endocarp bony. Seed with a membranous testa; albumen farinaceous; embryo axile.
A small genus, not uncommon in the north temperate zone. In the Southern Hemisphere its sole representative is the following species, which is found in both Australia and New Zealand.
1. S. antipodum, Graebner in Allg. Bot. Zeitschr. iv. (1899) 33.—Stems slender, erect, 1–2 ft. high. Leaves very long, the lower radical ones usually far surpassing the inflorescence, 1/10–1/5 in. broad, flattish above, acutely and prominently keeled beneath, tip acute, lower portion expanded into a long but rather narrow sheath. Inflorescence simple in small specimens, but usually with 1–3 slender flexuous branches bearing male heads alone or very rarely with a single female below the males; main rhachis with 2–4 distant female heads below, and 3–12 more closely placed male ones above; the lower portion of the inflorescence with long leafy bracts. Filaments of the male flowers long, considerably more than twice the length of the scales. Stigma narrow, elongate. Ripe fruit about ⅙ in. long, broadly obovoid, mucronate with the short thick persistent style.—S. angustifolium, R. Br. Prodr. 338 (not of Michx.); Benth. Fl. Austral. vii. 160; Col. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xvi. (1884) 339. S. simplex, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 238, and Handb. N.Z. Fl. 277 (not of Huds.).
North Island: Watery places from the North Cape to Wellington, not uncommon. South Island: Near Picton, J. Rutland! Maru. December–March .
Also in Australia, from Queensland to Victoria. S. subglobosum, Morong in Bull. Torrey Club, xv. (1888) 76, t. 79, f. 1, said to have been collected at the Bay of Islands by the American Exploring Expedition, is probably the same, and, if so, Morong's name will take precedence.