| General Information |
| Distribution | In the Hawaiian Islands,
endemic to
Kaua`i, O`ahu, Moloka`i, Lana`i, Maui, Hawai`i.
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Habit
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Perennials with obliquely ascending rhizomes, thickly clothed with dusky brown remnants of basal leaf sheaths; culms 60-120 cm tall, 4-7 mm in diameter below, subterete, 2-3-nodose between base and inflorescence.
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Leaves
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Leaves numerous, primarily basal, only 2-3 cauline, blades coriaceous, linear, much longer than the culm, 7-17 mm wide, lower surface white-powdery, strongly involute, margins prominently serrulate-scabrous, gradually tapering to an acuminate apex; sheaths long, the basal ones dark brown and those of cauline leaves green, glaucous, and flecked with dark brown.
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Flowers
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Inflorescence a moderately dense, subcontiguous, compound panicle, lanceolate in outline, 25-50 cm long, 3-6 cm wide, bearing many slightly elongated partial panicles, leafy bracts elongated, the lower and middle ones longer than the inflorescence, long-sheathing at base, peduncles solitary or in groups of 2-4, mostly enclosed in the bract sheath, bracteoles blackish brown, spathaceous; spikelets obovoid-turbinate when fruiting, 7-8 mm long, 3-4 mm wide, 1-flowered; glumes 4-6, dark brown, chartaceous, the lower 2-4 longer than the upper ones, narrowly ovate, gradually attenuate to acuminate to a short-awned apex, the upper 2 glumes subtending the achene, ovate, ca. 5 mm long, 2.7-3 mm wide, subobtuse to subacute at apex; perianth of a small scale, or occasionally of 2-3 bristles; stamens 3-5, hardly exserted from subtending glume; filament flexuous to crisped; style ca. 8 mm long, the base subulate-conical, persistent.
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Fruit
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Achenes dark yellow, glossy, bony, oblong-ellipsoid, terete, 5-6 mm long, 2-3 mm wide.
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Seeds
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Chromosomes
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2n = 96*
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