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Manual of the New Zealand Flora.
1. Triglochin, Linn
1. Triglochin, Linn.
Perennial marsh herbs. Soots fibrous. Leaves all radical, fili-form or rush-like, flat or terete. Scapes slender, naked, erect, bearing a raceme or spike of small green hermaphrodite flowers. Perianth - segments 3 or 6, herbaceous, concave, deciduous. Stamens 6, inserted on the base of the perianth-segments; fila-ments very short; anthers didymous, extrorse. Carpels 6, distinct or more or less connate; stigmas penicillate; ovules solitary in page 747each carpel, basilar, erect, anatropous. Fruit of 3 or 6 free or connate coriaceous nutlets separating from a central axis. Seeds erect, cylindric or ovoid, terete or compressed; testa membranous; embryo straight.
About 12 species are known, spread through most temperate or subtropical regions, but especially plentiful in Australia. Both the New Zealand species are widely distributed.
Triglochin is often regarded as forming (with 3 other small genera) a distinct; order (Juncaginaceœ), but for the purposes of this work it appears moat convenient to merge it with the Naiadaceœ.
Scape 3–10 in. high. Fruit subglobose 1. T. striatum. Scape 6–24 in. high. Fruit clavate 2. T. palustre.
| 1. | T. striatum, Ruiz and Pav. Fl. Per. iii. 72; var. filifolium, Buck. Index Crit. (1868) 59. — Rhizome short, stoloniferous. Leaves numerous, very narrow-linear or almost filiform, semi- terete, variable in length, shorter or rather longer than the scape. Scape 3–10 in. high; raceme usually occupying about one-half the length. Flowers numerous, shortly pedicelled, minute, about 1/12 in. diam. Outer perianth-segments broadly ovate; inner smaller and narrower. Perfect stamens 3, at the base of the outer segments; three inner abortive, without pollen, sometimes alto- gether wanting. Fruit globose, 1/10 in. diam., of 3 perfect carpels separating from a central axis and leaving 3 scale-like barren ones attached to it.—Buchenau in Pflanzenreich, Heft iv. 14. T. striatum, Benth. Fl. Austral. vii. 166. T. triandrum, Michx. Fl. Bor. Am. i. 208; Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 236; Hanclb. N.Z. Fl 278. T. flaccidum, A. Cunn. Precur. n. 321; Raoul, Choix, 41. T. filifolium, Sieb. ex Spreng. Syst. iv. 142; Hook. Ic. Plant. 579.
North and South Islands, Stewart Island, Chatham Islands: Abund-ant throughout in marshes near the sea; also inland in various localities in the thermal-springs district from Te Aroha and Rotorua to Taupo and Tokaanu. October–January. The New Zealand variety is also found in Australia, Tasmania, and Chili; the typical state ranges throughout almost the whole of North and South America, and also occurs in South Africa. |
| 2. | T. palustre, Linn. Sp. Plant. 338.—Rhizome short, stolonifer- ous. Leaves all radical, much shorter than the scape, narrow- linear or filiform, semiterete, upper surface faintly grooved. Scape slender, 6–24 in. high; raceme elongating after flowering. Flowers numerous, shortly pedicelled, minute, green or greenish-purple. Perianth-segments ovate, all equal. Stamens 6, all fertile; anthers purple. Fruit appressed to the rhachis, linear-clavate, ¼ in. long; carpels 3, very slender, almost awned at the base, attached to the axis by the tip.—Cheesem. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xiv. (1882) 300.
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South Island: Canterbury- Broken River, J. D. Enys and T. F. C.; Rangitata Valley, Haast! Lake Tekapo and Tasman Valley, T. F. C. Otago —Ophir, Black's, Petrie! 2000–3000 ft. December—January. A plant with a wide distribution in the Northern Hemisphere, also found in extratropical South America, but not yet detected in Australia. |