Flora of New Zealand Series

; Holotype: CHR 511252! B. P. J. Molloy North Otago, Waitaki Valley, Awahokomo Creek, true left, 14 Nov 1996.

Small, greyish green or dull green, sometimes purple tinged, short-lived perennial, forming slender tufts to c. 22 cm with wiry leaves < culms; branching extravaginal and occasionally intravaginal above; leaf-blades persistent. Leaf-sheath pale brown to purplish, membranous, distinctly ribbed, almost smooth with a few minute prickle-teeth just below ligule especially near margins. Ligule 1-1.5 mm, ± lacerate with at least one deep cleft, ciliate, tip dentate, abaxially minutely pubescent-scabrid. Leaf-blade to 6 cm × 1 mm, folded, abaxially with sparse minute prickle-teeth on midrib, elsewhere smooth, adaxially with minute stiff hairs; margins ± inrolled, with very minute prickle-teeth. Culm to 15 cm, very slender, purplish, with 1-2 cauline leaves spreading at right angles, internodes glabrous. Panicle 2-6 cm, open, sparingly branched; rachis glabrous, branches capillary, sometimes flexuous, smooth, with a few minute prickle-teeth above, and with 1-2 spikelets at tips. Spikelets 2.2-3 mm, 2-3-flowered, silvery purplish green. Glumes subequal, 2-2.5 mm, with wide, hyaline margins, midnerve with sparse prickle-teeth near tip; lower narrower, elliptic-lanceolate, acute to acuminate, 1-3-nerved, upper ovate, obtuse, 3-nerved, sometimes with minute prickle-teeth on margins and on lateral nerves above. Lemma 2-2.4 mm, 5-nerved, ovate, obtuse, covered for ¾ length with appressed, silky hairs c. 0.1 mm, and with sparse minute prickle-teeth near membranous tip. Palea c. 2 mm, keels and interkeel with minute appressed hairs in lower ¾, keels minutely prickle-toothed above hairs. Callus with minute fine hairs. Rachilla to 0.5 mm with scattered long hairs or almost glabrous. Lodicules c. 0.4 mm. Anthers 0.7-1.1 mm, sometimes reddish. Stigma-styles 1-1.4 mm. Caryopsis c. 1.5 × 0.7 mm.

S.: Otago (Awahokomo Bluff). In remnant scrub/grassland on weathered limestone.

Endemic.

Poa spania resembles P. lindsayi in the silky haired lemmas, inrolled greyish leaves and sparingly branched slender panicle but differs in extravaginal branching, and in the ± lacerate, abaxially scabrid ligule, rather than truncate and glabrous as in P. lindsayi. Anthers in P. spania (0.7-1.1 mm) are » anthers of P. lindsayi (0.2-0.5 mm).