Uncinia

Hook-sedge Uncinia uncinata, from here.

Belongs within: Cyperaceae.

Uncinia is a genus of sedges found in Australasia and South America, known as hook-sedges or hookgrasses due to their beaked fruits that can hook onto passing animals. They are often found at higher altitudes.

Characters (from Goetghebeur 1998): Tufted, rhizomatous, or rarely stoloniferous perennials. Culms scapose, rarely noded. Leaves ligulate. Inflorescence a bisexual spike with in the lower part female spikelets, and apically male flowers forming an apical male spikelet. Primary bracts mostly small and glumelike, or a few lower bracts more or less leaflike, deciduous or persistent. Male spikelet with few to many densely spirally arranged glumes, each subtending a male flower with two to three stamens with broad or narrow filaments. Female spikelets one-flowered, rachilla elongated, with a terminal recurved hook, formed by a thick, more or less coriaceous glume, prophyll utriculiform, subtending the female flower. Female flower without bristles, with a trifid style, style base not distinct, often more or less thickened and persistent, ovary seated on a small disc with three basal knobs, opposite the ribs. Achenes oblong to ovate, (rounded) trigonous, beaked, surface smooth.

<==Uncinia
    |--U. astonii W91
    |--U. caespitosa A27
    |--U. compacta W27
    |--U. divaricata W91
    |--U. drucei W91
    |--U. erinacea D03
    |--U. filiformis W91
    |--U. hamata J87
    |--U. involuta W91
    |--U. kingii D03
    |--U. leptostachya A27
    |--U. longifructus W91
    |--U. nervosa W91
    |--U. pedicellata A27
    |--U. phleoides D03
    |--U. rigida A27
    |--U. riparia A27
    |--U. rubra A27
    `--U. uncinata A27

*Type species of generic name indicated

REFERENCES

[A27] Andersen, J. C. 1927. Popular names of New Zealand plants. Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute 57: 905-977.

[D03] Dusén, P. 1903. The vegetation of western Patagonia. In Reports of the Princeton University Expeditions to Patagonia, 1896-1899, vol. 8 – Botany (W. B. Scott, ed.) pp. 1-34. The University: Princeton (New Jersey).

Goetghebeur, P. 1998. In: Kubitzki, K. (ed.) The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants vol. 4. Flowering Plants. Monocotyledons. Alismatanae and Commelinanae (except Gramineae) pp. 141-189. Springer.

[J87] Judd, W. S. 1987. Floristic study of Morne La Visite and Pic Macaya National Parks, Haiti. Bulletin of the Florida State Museum – Biological Sciences 32 (1): 1-136.

[W27] Wall, A. 1927. Some problems of distribution of indigenuous plants in New Zealand. Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute 57: 94-105.

[W91] Williams, P. A. 1991. Subalpine and alpine vegetation of granite ranges in western Nelson, New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Botany 29: 317-330.