Flora of New Zealand Series

; Lectotype: K! L. Lindsay northern slopes of Saddle Hill, near Dunedin, Otago, 20 Nov. 1861 (designated by Edgar 1986 op. cit. p. 474).

Small, delicate grey-green or blue-green, rarely reddish perennial tufts, 5-40 cm, with densely packed wiry, short and curved, or longer and erect leaves usually « culms; branching intravaginal, with a few extravaginal shoots at plant base; leaf-blades persistent. Leaf-sheath very pale brown, often purplish, membranous, distinctly ribbed, minutely scabrid abaxially, occasionally smooth. Ligule 0.2-0.7 mm, truncate, erose, glabrous throughout. Leaf-blade 0.5-1.5-(5) cm × 1-1.5-(3) mm, usually fine and folded, adaxially with minute scattered prickle-teeth, abaxially smooth, but midrib scabrid near naviculate tip; margins inrolled, sparingly scabrid. Culm (1.5)-5-15-(40) cm, very slender, purplish, usually bearing 2 small cauline leaves, internodes glabrous. Panicle 1.5-6.5-(8) cm, open; rachis glabrous, branches capillary, sometimes flexuous, very minutely scabrid with prickle-teeth scarcely visible except at high magnification, with rather few spikelets, clustered 2-3 at branch tips. Spikelets 1.5-4.5 mm, (1)-3-5-(6)-flowered, silvery purple-green. Glumes subequal, 1-2 mm, with wide hyaline margins, midnerve slightly scabrid in upper ½ or near tip; lower narrower, ovate-lanceolate, acute, 1-(3)-nerved, upper ovate, obtuse, 3-nerved, sometimes with a few prickle-teeth on margins and on lateral nerves above. Lemma 1-2 mm, 5-nerved, ovate, obtuse, covered almost throughout or for c. ⅔ length with long, appressed, silky hairs, c. 0.2 mm, midnerve scabrid and internerves glabrous near membranous tip. Palea 1-2 mm, keels long-ciliate, interkeel with appressed hairs, flanks with some hairs. Callus glabrous. Rachilla to 0.5 mm, with scattered long hairs or almost glabrous. Lodicules 0.2-0.4 mm. Anthers 0.2-0.5 mm. Gynoecium: ovary 0.3-0.5 mm; stigma-styles 0.7-1 mm. Caryopsis c. 1 × 0.5 mm. 2 n = 28. Plate 7F.

N.: near Lake Taupo, and Kaweka and Ruahine Ranges; S.: east of Main Divide from Marlborough to Southland, occasionally extending into Westland and Fiordland. Dry stony places in riverbeds, moraines, and depleted short tussock grassland; lowland to alpine.

Endemic.

A specimen with red anthers c. 1 mm long, Gooses Neck, Lake Benmore, depleted short tussock grassland, CHR 221915 D. Kelly 19.10.1971, agrees in other respects with P. lindsayi. It is tall (to 30 cm) with reddish leaves, and spikelets c. 4 mm.