Agrostis dyeri Petrie
≡A. dyeri Petrie var. dyeri (Hackel in Cheeseman 1906 op. cit. p. 865);
Lectotype: WELT 69294! D. Petrie Ruahine Mountains (E. side) 4500 ft, Jan. 1889 (No 1112 to Hackel) (designated by Edgar and Forde 1991 op. cit. p. 148).
=A. dyeri var. aristata Hack. in Cheeseman Man. N.Z. Fl. 865 (1906);
Lectotype: W 36259 (specimen on right)! D. Petrie Clinton Valley, Lake Te Anau [Jan. 1892] (No 1091 to Hackel) (designated by Edgar and Forde 1991 op. cit. p. 149).
Tufts usually stiff, occasionally laxer with wide leaves, (10)-15-55 cm, with culms usually much overtopping leaves; branching intravaginal. Leaf-sheath firmly membranous, light green to light greyish brown, distinctly ribbed, smooth, or scabrid above near ligule, or scabrid throughout, or only basal sheaths scabrid, later shredding into fibres. Ligule 0.8-2.2 mm, truncate, erose to lacerate, abaxially smooth or scabrid. Leaf-blade 3.5-10-(17.5) cm × 1-2.5-(4) mm, usually flat, abaxially smooth or finely scabrid on ribs, very rarely densely scabrid throughout, adaxially finely scabrid, tip acute to acuminate. Culm erect or geniculate at base, internodes glabrous. Panicle (4)-5-12-(20) cm, narrowly branched, lanceolate, either contracted after flowering but > 5 mm wide, or remaining open; rachis smooth, branches and pedicels filiform, sparsely scabrid. Spikelets c. 3-3.5-(4) mm, green to brownish purple. Glumes ± equal, smooth, elliptic-lanceolate, acute, keel finely scabrid above, margins scabrid near tip. Lemma 2.3-3.3 mm, glabrous, 5-nerved, ovate-elliptic, truncate, minutely denticulate; awn 0, or rarely fine, straight, scabrid, to c. 2 mm, arising from midpoint to upper ⅓ of lemma, scarcely or not projecting beyond glumes. Palea 0.5-0.8 mm, ovate. Lodicules ≤ palea. Callus with small tuft of hairs or only a few minute hairs below each lemma margin. Anthers 0.6-1.2 mm. Caryopsis 1-1.8 × 0.3-0.5 mm. 2 n = 42.
N.: in southern mountains; S.: mountains along and west of Main Divide and in Fiordland, on the east in Marlborough and Canterbury and occasionally further south. Tussock grassland, scrub, herbfield or scree; subalpine to alpine.
Endemic.
Two forms have been recognised within A. dyeri, see Druce, A. P. in Druce, A. P. et al. N.Z. J. Bot. 25: 41-78 (1987). Throughout its range in North Id and in wetter localities in South Id the panicle is contracted after flowering, all leaf-sheaths are smooth and anthers usually 0.6-0.8 mm. In South Id on drier sites the panicle remains open after flowering, all leaf-sheaths or at least the basal sheaths are scabrid and the anthers usually 0.8-1.2 mm. Druce (1987 op. cit.) noted "Occasionally plants of the two [forms] may be found growing side by side in the same community".
