Elymus multiflorus (Banks & Sol. ex Hook.f.) Á.Löve & Connor var. multiflorus
Tufted many-noded stoloniferous open grass with scabrid wide green leaf-blades often shorter than smooth culms; branching extravaginal. Leaf-sheath 6-10 mm, striate, margin chartaceous, glabrous or retrorsely short hairy. Ligule 0.2-0.5 mm, erose. Collar curved, thickened, infrequently bearing long hairs. Auricles 0.5-1.5 mm, clasping, glabrous or bearing long hairs. Leaf-blade 10-20 cm × 2-4 mm, flat usually bright green but sometimes glaucous, abaxially shortly antrorsely scabrid or occasionally glabrous, adaxially with antrorse short hairs or prickle-teeth on ribs or sometimes with longer hairs; margin shortly prickle-toothed. Culm 30-60 cm, often stout, internodes scabrid below inflorescence, otherwise smooth, nodes ± geniculate below; culm leaves often very broad. Inflorescence 10-25 cm, of 6-15 spikelets occasionally paired at base, rachis convex surface often sparsely prickle-toothed. Spikelets 14-25 mm, of 7-12 florets. Glumes ± equal, 5-9 mm, 3-5-nerved, eccentrically keeled, often broad, margins chartaceous, ciliate; keel and nerves prickle-toothed above elsewhere smooth, sometimes produced into short awn. Lemma usually with small scattered prickle-teeth above, glabrous below except on margin, apex often bifid when mucronate, awn absent or ≈ lemma, variable in one spikelet. Palea 9-12 mm, apex truncate or retuse, ciliate. Rachilla 1-2.5 mm, hairy. Callus 0.75-1 mm, incompletely shortly bearded. Lodicules 0.8-1.25 mm, simple, linear. Anthers 3-5 mm, purple or yellow. Gynoecium: ovary 1.5-2 mm; stigma-styles 1.75 mm. Caryopsis 7-10 mm; embryo 1 mm. 2 n = 42.
N.: offshore islands and coastal throughout, inland in Hawkes Bay; S.: coastal from Nelson to Banks Peninsula; Three Kings Is. Cliffs and rocks of various substrates, frequently limestone, in coastal and inland areas; sea level to 600 m.
Indigenous.
Also present in eastern Australia.
The Norfolk Island endemic E. multiflorus var. kingianus (Endl.) Connor can be distinguished from New Zealand plants by the multiplicity of small prickle-teeth on the lemmas and on the glumes. Awns, approaching 17 mm, are strict and about as long as in some E. multiflorus × E. solandri hybrids, although the ratio awn:lemma at 1.3-1.6 is less than in hybrids. The truncate palea apex is manifestly ciliate.
