Poa pusilla Berggr.
≡P. pusilla Berggr. var. pusilla (autonym Cockayne 1911 op. cit. p. 34);
Holotype: LD! S. Berggren in alpibus ad flum. Bealey, Ins. austr. Novae Zelandiae, Feb. 1874.
=P. seticulmis Petrie, T.N.Z.I. 34: 391 (1902)
≡P. pusilla var. seticulmis (Petrie) Cockayne Dept Lands Rep. Dune Areas N.Z. 34 (1911);
Lectotype: WELT 66866! D. P[etrie] Maunganui Bluff, N. of Kaihu, Jan. 1896 (designated by Edgar 1986 op. cit. p. 453).
=P. anceps var. ε debilis Buchanan Indig. Grasses N.Z. t. 46E (1880);
Holotype: WELT 59600 (Buchanan's folio)! Kirk Auckland district, hot springs [Feb. 1872].
=P. anceps var. ξminima Buchanan Indig. Grasses N.Z. t. 46F (1880);
Holotype: WELT 59599 (Buchanan's folio)! A. Mackay Mt Arthur, 4200 ft [1874].
=P. anceps var. gracilis Cheeseman Man. N.Z. Fl. 904 (1906);
Lectotype: AK 1820! T. F. C[heeseman] Hawera, Taranaki, Jan. 1885 (No 1443 to Hackel) (designated by Edgar 1986 op. cit. p. 453).
Slender, often delicate, open, perennial tufts, 5-c. 35 cm, with few, very narrow, flaccid, bright green leaves, and slender, long-creeping rhizome; branching extravaginal; leaf-blades persistent. Leaf-sheath greenish purple becoming light brown, ± membranous, distinctly keeled, ribs strong, whitish, shaggy pubescent-scabrid, or minutely scabrid throughout or only near hyaline margins, occasionally with a few longer hairs on margins near ligule, rarely completely glabrous. Ligule 0.2-0.5 mm, truncate, ciliate, sometimes erose, abaxially with minute hairs. Leaf-blade (1)-5-15-(25) cm × c. 0.5 mm diam., folded, rarely flat and wider, margins inrolled, abaxially distinctly ribbed, glabrous, adaxially with scattered short hairs especially on midrib, tip subacute to curved, scabrid on midrib. Culm 3-30-(50) cm, very slender, erect or drooping above, internodes glabrous. Panicle 1.5-8.5 cm; branches spreading, few, filiform, scabrid, bearing 1-4 spikelets at tips. Spikelets 3-7.5 mm, 2-5-(7)-flowered, yellow-green, faintly purplish. Glumes subequal, 2-4-(4.5) mm, 3-nerved, narrow elliptic- to ovate-lanceolate, acute or subacute, smooth, midnerve and sometimes lateral nerves sparsely scabrid. Lemma 2-4-(5) mm, 5-nerved, oblong- to ovate-elliptic, obtuse, midnerve with long silky crinkled hairs in lower ½, sometimes scabrid above hairs, lateral nerves usually with conspicuous silky hairs near base or in lower ½, internerves usually smooth, rarely finely scabrid, with hyaline band at slightly erose tip. Palea 2-3.5 mm, keels short ciliate-scabrid, interkeel short pubescent-scabrid, flanks smooth to scabrid. Callus with thick tuft of long, silky crinkled hairs. Rachilla (0.3)-0.6-0.8 mm, with scattered long hairs. Lodicules c. 0.5 mm. Anthers 1-2 mm. Caryopsis c. 1 × 0.5 mm. 2 n = 28.
N.: throughout; S.: throughout but rarely recorded from eastern plains and dry inland basins; St.; Three Kings Is. Lowland to subalpine, in open forest, scrub, tussock grassland, in stony places or on sand dunes.
Endemic.
An extremely slender fine-leaved form of P. pusilla was collected on the west coast of Wellington Province at Himatangi (1931), Foxton (1932), and at Hokio (1967), where it formed dense mats in damp sand flats among dunes, from densely interwoven rhizomes; A. P. Druce (in litt.) considered that all sites where the plants grew are so modified that this capillary-like form of P. pusilla may no longer exist.
