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Carex ternaria Hook. f.
Type: Lord Auckland Islands, J. D. Hooker, Ross voyage.
Syntype: 1481, Lord Auckland group. Both in Herb. Kew.
The Type is a young specimen in a preflowering state, and determination of its position must rely on vegetative and glume characters. The sheaths are membranous, and, together with the leaves, are septate-nodulose (i.e., marked by cross-veinlets). The glumes are mostly very young and still largely hyaline, 3–4 mm long, truncate tending to subacute or excurrent along the awn in the oldest examples, awns up to three times the length of the glumes, very hispid.
The only other known taxon of this group which has been collected on the Auckland Islands is C. darwinii var. aristata C. B. Clarke ex Kukenthal and a comparison was made between Hooker's specimens and all available material of C. darwinii var. aristata, including a large suite collected on the Chatham Islands by the author in February, 1957.
Specimens growing in fairly dry situations were found to be much smaller and of a more coriaceous texture than plants in permanently wet places. All growth forms have membranous sheaths to the leaves, while plants from wet places were conspicuously septate-nodulose as in Hooker's plant. Neither of these characters is found to the same extent in either C. geminata or C. lessoniana.
No specimens were found in a similar state of floral development to Hooker's plant, but WELT 2704, Antipodes Islands, Aston is in a more advanced flowering condition. One spike from this collection had not been exserted when the plant.
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was gathered and the glumes of this spike show a development from a truncate glume to an acute glume.
The only mature specimen from Auckland Islands which has been located is Paris 2813 collected by Guillou on the voyage of the “Astrolabe” and “Zelee”, 1838–40. The utricles of this specimen (some of them are in a packet on the Type sheet of C. ternaria) agree very well with specimens of C. darwinii var. aristata from dry situations.
On the basis of the above comparisons, C. ternaria and C. darwinii var. aristata are believed to be conspecific and the synonymy is amended below. It has not been possible to take into account the South American plants of C. darwinii which in any case do not affect the nomenclature of the New Zealand species, for on the present interpretations, both C. urolepis Franch. and C. darwinii var. darwinii Boott in Hook. f. (also C. serranoi Phil.) must be placed under C. ternaria, the latter being the oldest name, unless they be proved specifically distinct. The nomenclature given, therefore, applies to New Zealand plants only:—
C. ternaria Forst. f. ex Boott in Hook. f. Fl. Antarct. 1: 89, 1844.
C. Darwinii var. aristata C. B. Clarke ex Kukenthal, Bot. Jahrb. 27: 529, 1899 based on.
C. uroleps Franch. Miss. Sc. Cape Horn 5: 376, f. 5. 1899.
C. Darwinii var. urolepis (Franch.) Kukenthal, Pflanzenr. Heft 38: 367, 1909.
C. Martini Petrie, Trans. N.Z. Inst. 56: 7, 1926 non Lev. and Van.
C. ternaria, published as a nomen nudum by Forster (Prodr. 92, 1786) was referred to C. geminata Schkuhr as a synonym by Schkuhr (Nachtr. 28, 1806), Wahlenberg (Vet. Akad. Nya Handl. Stockholm 24: 160, 1803) and Steudel (Nomencl. Bot. ed. 2: 290, 1840), but this does not invalidate Boott's later publication. The present author (Hamlin, Trans. Roy. Soc. N.Z. 82: 56, 1954) also referred it to C. geminata, but all other authors, including Boott and Hooker in the original publication, considered the name to be applicable to the plant now called C. lessoniana Steudel.
From a field study of the species as it occurs in the Chatham Islands, some amendments and additions can be made to the description as previously published (Hamlin, Trans. Roy. Soc. N.Z. 82: 61, 1954). The smaller measurements are for plants growing in dry situation.
Culms 30–150 cm tall; leaves 6–17 mm wide (when fresh), greatly exceeding the culms; spikes 3–10 cm long, 0.5–1 cm broad, cylindric or lanceolate in large specimens; glumes 3–5 mm long; utricles 3–4 mm long, stipitate, subcoriaceous, not granular-papillose.
Cheeseman (Manual, 1925) states that the basal sheaths are not transversely fibrillose, but the presence of this character as described by Kukenthal is confirmed in recent collections.
The large form of this species was observed in two localities on Pitt Island, both clumps being in standing water. The small form only was collected on the main Chatham Island, each time being in peat on sloping ground. There had been no rain for a considerable period prior to the visit, and the surface of the ground was hard and dry.
My thanks are due to the Director, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, for the loan of the Type and other specimens, and much information supplied by correspondence. Mr. V. D. Zotov reported on the Kew material during his recent visit, and this assistance is gratefully acknowledged.
B. G. Hamlin, Dominion Museum, Private Bag, Wellington.