Machaerina gunnii (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Machaerina gunnii (Hook.f.) Kern

Family: Cyperaceae

Synonyms

Cladium brevipaniculatum Kük., C. gunnii Hook.f.

Vernacular names

• Papua New Guinea: guli (Enga language, Kepilan).

Distribution

Papua New Guinea and Australia.

Uses

In Papua New Guinea the stems are used by women for making skirts.

Observations

A perennial herb, up to 1 m tall, with a short, creeping rhizome. Stems approximate on the creeping rhizome, terete or with a longitudinal furrow, 20-60(-100) cm × 1-2 mm, rigid and pithy, finely striate. Leaves distichously arranged, lowest ones often reduced to bladeless sheaths that clasp the stem tightly, normal ones 1-2, basal, similar to the stems. Inflorescence paniculate, erect, narrowly oblong, 5-10(-25) cm long, consisting of few to several partial panicles with branches in twos or threes with few spikelets; spikelet shortly peduncled, 1-flowered, 5-7 mm long; bristles absent; stamens 3, anthers with distinct, 0.5 mm long appendage to the connective; pistil with thick-based style persistent in fruit, stigmas 3. Fruit a nut, ellipsoid, 2.5-3.5 mm long, trigonous with 3 indistinct ribs, brown to blackish. M. gunnii is found in swampy grasslands at 2250-3000 m altitude. From a slightly more robust species, M. mariscoides (Gaudich.) J. Kern, distributed more widely from New Guinea to other Pacific islands as far as Hawaii, the leaves are used in Hawaii for tying and for lashing thatch to houses.

Selected sources

39, 47, 158.

Authors

M. Brink, P.C.M. Jansen & C.H. Bosch