Flora of New Zealand Series

quaking grass

Shortly rhizomatous perennial, 30-55 cm. Leaf-sheath sub-membranous, glabrous, distinctly ribbed. Ligule 0.5-1 mm, blunt, glabrous. Leaf-blade c. 10 cm × 2.5 mm, flat to folded, glabrous; margins finely scabrid, tip narrow, acute. Culm 25-45 cm, erect, internodes glabrous. Panicle 10-16 cm, erect, ± pyramidal with numerous spikelets; rachis smooth to sparsely scabrid above; branches erect to spreading, scabrid, pedicels very filiform, curved or flexuous, smooth or sparsely scabrid, 5-10 mm. Spikelets 4-6 × 3-5.5 mm, pendent, broadly ovate, laterally compressed, usually purplish. Glumes subequal, 2.5-3 mm, 3-nerved, spreading, concave, suborbicular, subcoriaceous, glabrous; margins wide, whitish, membranous, apex hooded. Lemma 3-3.5 mm, 7-9-nerved, similar to glumes in texture and colour, cordate at base. Palea ≈ lemma, elliptic, flat, narrowly winged. Lodicules c. 1 mm, linear-lanceolate, acute. Anthers (1)-2-2.5 mm. Gynoecium: ovary c. 1 mm; stigma-styles 2-2.5 mm. Caryopsis c. 1 × c. 0.8 mm; embryo c. 0.6 mm; hilum punctiform, c. 0.3 mm.

S.: South Canterbury (Whitecliffs and on east side of Tasman Valley). In manuka scrub and tussock grassland.

Naturalised from Eurasia.