Zizania latifolia (Griseb.) Hance ex F.Muell.

Robust, stout perennials, to 3 m, with strong rhizomes and large, rather narrow, purplish panicle. Cataphylls broad. Leaf-sheath glabrous, many-nerved, spongy and honey-combed with numerous transverse septa beneath the stiff epidermis, pale greenish, straw-coloured or light brown to purplish; margins papery. Ligule 25–40 mm, nerved, smooth, acute, entire or later fimbriate. Collar conspicuous abaxially and separating sheath and blade. Leaf-blade 50–120 × 1–2.5 cm, linear-lanceolate, light green, tough, midnerve much thickened abaxially below, glabrous, margins scabrid; tip pungent. Culm to 2 cm diam., internodes glabrous. Panicle 30–70 cm, with sparsely scabrid pulvinate branches with long white hairs in axils, all branches and spikelets ascending, upper branches with ♀ spikelets, pedicels slender, capillary, tips cupule-like equally wide, sometimes short-ciliate; lower branches with ♂ spikelets and also ♂ spikelet at times among ♀ spikelets in middle branches. ♂ spikelets: lemma 12–15 mm, nerves 7, raised, purplish, linear-lanceolate, membranous, very finely scabrid on and between nerves, long-acuminate to shortly (c. 2 mm) awned. Palea c. 10.5 mm, 3-nerved, sparsely scabrid on keel and between nerves above, margins wide, hyaline. Lodicules 0.75 mm. Stamens 6; anthers (5)–6–7 mm, bright orange-yellow, tailed. ♀ spikelets: lemma 15–20 mm, 7-nerved, linear, chartaceous, greenish to sometimes slightly purplish, scabrid on nerves and very finely scabrid between nerves, awn scabrid, erect 12–30 mm. Palea 10–13 mm, 3-keeled, nerves scabrid, interkeels faintly scabrid. Gynoecium: ovary 1.5 mm, beaked; stigma-styles c. 20 mm, stigma white exserted beyond lemma apex. Caryopsis c. 6 × 1.5 mm. Fig. 3.

[From: Edgar and Connor (2000) Flora of New Zealand. Volume 5 (second printing).]