Flora of New Zealand Series

; Holotype: CHR 402693! B. Patrick 3 Otago Land District, Alexandra, Conroys Road, salty soil patch on side of small valley in dry rolling country, 280 m, 19 Nov 1993.

Low-growing perennial to 4.5 cm, sometimes forming a loosely woven mat to 2 m diam. or more, usually almost entirely covered by soil, rarely flowering and only the short very narrow dull green curved leaves visible; branching extravaginal. Leaf-sheath glabrous, submembranous, much wider than leaf-blade, ribs few, distinct. Ligule 0.2-0.6 mm, subhyaline, obtuse or truncate. Leaf-blade 1-3 cm × 0.2-0.5 mm, setaceous, involute, glabrous, subacute, margins minutely scaberulous. Culm entirely hidden by leaf-sheaths. Panicle rarely present, 10-16 mm, overtopped by leaf-blades, bearing up to 12 spikelets, lowermost branches enclosed by leaf-sheaths, smooth, uppermost branches scaberulous. Spikelets 3-4-(4.8) mm, 4-6-flowered, green to brownish green. Glumes unequal, ovate, obtuse, submembranous; lower 0.6-1 mm, 1-nerved, upper 1.1-1.4 mm, 3-nerved. Lemma 1.8-2.5 mm, 5-nerved, ovate-elliptic, entirely glabrous, midnerve ± reaching subacute apex. Palea ≈ lemma, keels scabrid in upper ⅔. Rachilla 0.4-0.5 mm. Anthers 0.4-0.6 mm. Caryopsis 1.2-1.6 × 0.6-0.7 mm.

S.: Central Otago; St. (Paterson Inlet). In saltpans, salty slicks and scarps from 100-600 m, in the barest, saltiest ground, in Otago; in stony low turf on tidal bank at sea level on St.

Endemic.

Flowering specimens are not often seen, those that have been collected may bear panicles in profusion, e.g., CHR 190047 A. J. Healy 68/389 Conroy's Gully, near Alexandra, Central Otago, 10/11/1968; CHR 508522 B. H. Patrick Conroy's Rd, near Alexandra, Central Otago, 20 Oct 1995.