Infl. a panicle, branchlets , or fewer in ± distant clusters along the panicle axis, each cluster subtended by a lf-like bract with an exceedingly elongate filiform tip. Spikelets , 1-fld, fl. hermaphrodite, or us. 2-fld, the upper fl. hermaphrodite, the lower male with a ± rudimentary ovary. Glumes imbricate all round, often of 2 kinds; lowermost 2–6 empty, lanceolate-acuminate, keeled, scabrid on keel and margins, upper 2–3 glumes ovate, deeply concave, obtuse, often very small, pale and ± hyaline at anthesis, becoming larger, darker and more rigid as fr. matures, and closely enclosing fr. Hypog. bristles 0. Stamens 4–6, often asymmetrically placed, filaments pale- or red-brown, in all N.Z. spp. elongating excessively after anthesis, persistent, and by entangling with glumes or with filaments of other fls, retaining the nuts on the plants long after they have fallen out of the glumes. Style continuous with ovary, not thickened at base; style-branches (2)–3–4–(5). Nut us. subtrigonous; endocarp hard and thick, often transversely furrowed on inner surface. Perennial, harsh-lvd, rhizomatous, or in tussocks from a woody rootstock. Culms erect, robust, smooth, terete. Lvs mainly radical, a few cauline, or almost all cauline; lamina us. ± involute, with scabrid margins, tapering gradually to an elongate filiform tip. Genus of some 40 spp., centred chiefly in Australia and N.Z.; extending through the Pacific Is and Malaysia, to Japan and China, and to Hawaii. Five N.Z. spp. are endemic and one is recorded from elsewhere in the Pacific.