Manual of the New Zealand Flora.

3. Gaimardia, Gaud

3. Gaimardia, Gaud.

Small densely tufted perennial herbs; stems much branched, leafy throughout. Leaves numerous, densely imbricated, linear or setaceous. Scape terminal. Floral bracts 2 or 3, when 3 the upper-one usually empty. Flowers 1 to each bract, sessile or stipitate. Stamens 2; filaments filiform; anthers linear-oblong. Ovary 2- or rarely 3-celled; the cells (or carpels) collateral, connate; styles the same number as the carpels, long, filiform. Fruiting carpels 2, or 1 by abortion.

A small genus of 2 or 3 species, found in antarctic South America, New Zealand, and Tasmania.

1. G. setacea, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 267.—Perennial, densely tufted and compacted, forming broad moss-like patches sometimes 1–3 ft. across. Stems very numerous, branched, erect, leafy throughout, 1–3 in. high. Leaves numerous, erect, densely imbricate, ¼–¾ in. long, linear-setaceous with acicular tips; sheaths broad, membranous, quite glabrous, entire, produced at the tip into a free ligule. Scape terminal, rigid, erect, longer than the-leaves. Floral bracts 2 or 3, alternate, convolute, appressed, obtuse, each 1-flowered or the uppermost empty. Hyaline scales absent. Stamens 2. Ovary of 2 connate collateral carpels; style 1 to each carpel, filiform. Fruiting carpels 2, or 1 bv abortion.— Handb. N.Z. Fl. 297. South Island, Stewart Island: Not uncommon in subalpine bogs throughout. 2500–4500 ft. December–March.