Tiny plant, forming several mats around former farm dam, on soil exposed by falling water level and otherwise generally bare.
Tentatively identified as Glossostigma cleistanthum.
I dug up a bit of the plant and it had two rounded pedicellate appendages in the soil but my attempts to photograph these tiny structures were hopeless.
The grass leaf in one photo is Water Couch. The other photo has some senesced flowers.
I IDd it as Glossostigma diandrum from the Plantnet key. It states that Glossostigma diandrum pedicels (flower stalks) are 2-15 mm long and the fruit (seed cases) are erect in fruit and that Glossostigma cleistanthem pedicels (flower stalks) are 0-0.5 mm long and the fruit (seed cases) are downturned into the soil.
Yes, on a second look at the description (rather than relying on the key), then this plant is consistent with G. diandrum as described in the last para in Flora Vic (on line) which says In "some Victorian and New Zealand material there is evidence of cleistogamous flowers, sometimes on plants also bearing normal flowers. Unlike those of Glossostigma cleistanthum, however, these flowers are prominently pedicellate". The leaves and habit of this plant are rather different from G. diandrum from the same site photographed at the same time, also posted on CNM. I have arranged with the Herbarium to take in some live material for them to look at, to-morrow.
The Herbarium identified two species in the five bits of live material from the dam: Glossostigma diandrum and Glossostigma cleistanthum. The material that was G. cleistanthum was slightly higher up, mostly as understorey to sedges: in the photograph it is yellowing because it is beginning to senesce as soils dry out and weather hots up. Glossostigma diandrum patches were on exposed muds, generally lower down the slope, and still vigorous.
I have replaced the photographs inserted originally (which may have been a mix of two Glossostigma species as the leaf looked like G. cleistanthum but the pedicellate fruit more like G. diandrum) with one of where the live material of G. cleistanthum was collected (but Elatine gratioloides also present).
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