×Agropogon littoralis (Sm.) C.E.Hubb.
Agrostis stolonifera × Polypogon monspeliensis
perennial beard grass
Loose tufts, 15-40 cm, sometimes stoloniferous. Leaf-sheath distinctly ribbed. Ligule 2-5.5 mm, truncate or rounded, becoming lacerate. Leaf-blade 1.5-7 cm × 1-3 mm, flat, scabrid. Culm geniculate at base, erect or ascending above, internodes glabrous. Panicle 2-8 × 0.5-2.2 cm, dense, oblong or lanceolate, often lobed, brownish green; rachis smooth, branches and short pedicels scabrid. Spikelets persistent, 3-5 mm, green to purplish brown. Glumes = spikelet, firmly membranous, very finely scabrid; awn apical, 1-2.3 mm, straight, fine, finely scabrid. Lemma < glumes, 1.2-1.8 mm, glabrous, elliptic-oblong, truncate, apex irregularly and very shortly denticulate; awn very fine, subapical, 0.7-2 mm. Palea < lemma, glabrous, finely 2-nerved. Callus glabrous. Stamens 3; anthers 0.7-1 mm, pollenless. Caryopsis usually not developed, very rarely present and 1-1.5 × c. 0.5 mm.
Of probable natural hybrid origin in New Zealand rarely occurring in Buller (Orowaiti estuary near Westport) and Canterbury (Kairaki, Le Bons Bay, Lake Ellesmere) on salt flats and damp sandy or silty ground near the coast, growing with Polypogon monspeliensis and Agrostis stolonifera.
×Agropogon littoralis occurs sporadically in coastal areas in the Northern Hemisphere and Australia; the hybrids are intermediate between the parents in floral characters, with conspicuous awns and persistent spikelets; vegetatively they resemble Agrostis stolonifera.
EXCLUDED SPECIES
Agrostis canina L., velvet bent, was first recorded for N.Z. by Hooker, J. D. Fl. N.Z. 1: 296 (1853), but this was a misidentification of endemic A. personata. Velvet bent was recorded as naturalised from Europe by Kirk, T. T.N.Z.I. 3: 160 (1871), but Allan, H. H. N.Z. DSIR Bull. 49: 108 (1936), considered it "very rare in the naturalised state". Agrostis canina has occasionally been cultivated in N.Z. as a lawn grass but no specimens collected from the wild have been seen. Ii is a loosely tufted, often stoloniferous perennial, rather similar to A. capillaris and A. castellana bu the ligules are acute and the palea is minute.
