Chionochloa pallens Zotov subsp. pallens
Stout tussock with persistent leaf-blades. Leaf-sheath to 20 mm, pale straw coloured, internerves and margins glabrous, apical tuft of hairs small or absent. Leaf-blade to 1 m × 6 mm, persistent, adaxially with prickle-teeth or papillae. Culm to 1 m, sheath margins glabrous.
N.: mountain ranges from Raukumara Range south; S.: mountain ranges in northern Marlborough and Nelson. Grasslands to 1550 m.
Endemic.
Included here are the many plants of short stature collected from the Tararua Range (CHR 262891, 82216, 86290) and from other North Id mountain ranges (CHR 25155, 74363, 63188, 389809) which in this respect seem to be different from the holotype.
CHR 366206a A. P. Druce Tararua Range, has flowers with ligulate lodicules up to 2 mm, as also in CHR 62367 (Tararua Range). In other plants lodicules were of the normal rhomboid shape and c. 1 mm e.g., CHR 6551 V. D. Zotov; CHR 262891a A. P. Druce.
In specimens from the Ruahine Range occasionally the culm-sheath margins are hairy; this is very occasionally so in South Id.
