Flora of New Zealand Series

; Holotype: CHR 166731! P. Wardle Trig D, Tin Range, Stewart I., 1600 ft, grassland, 30.3.66.

Tall, slender tussock with abundantly long hairy, dull sheaths, and shiny, slender, deciduous leaves. Leaf-sheath to 15 cm, compressed, entire, persistent, covered with long (4 mm) interlacing internerve hairs, apical tuft of hairs to 4 mm. Ligule to 1 mm. Leaf-blade to 45 cm × 2 mm, V-shaped, or convolute, disarticulating at ligule, abaxially glabrous, adaxially with very short hairs at base and prickle-teeth and papillae above; margin smooth. Culm to 60 cm, internodes glabrous, slightly compressed, sheath with few or no long hairs. Inflorescence to 10 cm, pulvinate, few spikelets, abundantly long hairy. Spikelets of up to 6 florets. Glumes glabrous, acute, > adjacent lemma lobes; lower to 10 mm, 3-nerved, upper to 14 mm, 5-nerved. Lemma to 5 mm; hairs dense at margin and few or none aside central nerve, glabrous elsewhere, < sinus; lateral lobes up to 6 mm, linear-triangular; central awn up to 15 mm from twisting column to 2 mm. Palea to 6 mm. Callus to 0.8 mm, hairs to 3 mm. Rachilla to 1 mm. Lodicules to 1 mm. Anthers to 3.5 mm. Gynoecium: ovary to 1 mm; stigma-styles to 4 mm. Caryopsis to 1.5 mm.

St. Grassland and scrub in wet, boggy, or peaty sites; almost at sea level near some cliffs; to 1000 m.

Endemic.