Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Perennial herbs, rhizomes short, horizontal.

Stems: Stems dark brown at base, crowded on rhizome, 4–13 dm long, 3–4 mm in diameter, pith interrupted.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Leaves basal, bladeless. Margins entire. Sheaths dark brown at base becoming pale brown toward apex. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers solitary in many-branched, spreading, cymose inflorescences up to 12 cm long, dichotomously branched, appearing lateral, lowest bract terete (cylindrical), appearing to be a continuation of the stem, 10–40 cm long, usually much longer than inflorescence. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Perianth parts pale, shorter than capsule, not spreading in fruit, inner ones wider than outer ones, with wide hyaline margins, outer ones longer than inner ones. Stamens 3. Pollen grains remaining in tetrads, surrounded by a common exine. Ovary superior, carpels 1.

Fruit: Capsules pale to medium brown; shiny; thin; globose; ca. 2 mm long. Seeds rusty brown; asymmetrical; apiculate; ca. 0.45 mm long.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Naturalized in muddy; disturbed areas; and it has been collected from pond cultivation on O'ahu.

Elevation Range: above 700 m.