Flora of New Zealand Series

; Lectotype: WELT 68611! B. C. Aston Days Bay, Wellington, Feby 1906 (designated by Connor 1998 op. cit. p. 355).

Scrambling, prostrate ascending, extravaginally branching with buds bursting forth on many-noded stolons, or sometimes densely caespitose, glaucous grass with many-leaved vegetative shoots and inflorescences exceeding the usually secund leaves. Prophyll short, membranous throughout; keels usually with retrorse hairs. Branching extravaginal. Leaf-sheath 3-10 cm (longer on shoots with very many leaf-blades), glabrous, ribbed, manifestly broader than leaf-blade, becoming fibrous with evident white nerves; apical auricles 0.2-0.5-0.7 mm, rounded, ciliate. Ligule 0.2-0.5 mm, flat to ± triangular between auricles, ciliate. Collar scarcely or ± thickened. Leaf-blade (5)-10-25 cm × 0.3-0.5-(0.9) mm diam., weakly hexagonal and ribbed, often terete usually secund, glaucous, smooth except for prickle-teeth at apex, adaxially and on margins antrorsely short white hairy becoming less so above; TS: 5 vascular bundles and 7 sclerenchyma strands, occasionally 7 bundles and 9 strands. Culm 20-40-(50) cm, greatly exceeding leaf-blades, nodes brown to purple-brown usually geniculate, internodes glabrous. Panicle (2.5)-5-10-(20) cm, with 5-9 nodes, (6)-10-15-(25) spikelets; branches spreading erect or weakly so, occasionally ± divergent, binate or solitary, basal branch (1)-2-4-(10) cm of 3-6 spikelets, naked below or not naked below especially in Cook Strait, uppermost 5-6 spikelets, imbricate, solitary on short (0.5-1 mm) pedicels; rachis prickle-toothed often glabrous below, branches and pedicels prickle-toothed but glabrous throughout in Cook Strait; frequently tortuous below. Spikelets 7-15-(20) mm × 3-5 mm, of 4-6-(9) stramineous florets. Glumes unequal, evidently keeled, linear-oblong narrowing abruptly to an acute or mucronate apex, glabrous but occasionally prickle-toothed on keel above, apex sometimes shortly or evidently ciliate, margins membranous, ciliate above; lower 2.5-3-(4.5) mm, 1-nerved, upper 4-5.5-(6) mm, 3-nerved. Lemma 5-6 mm, glaucous, apex shortly lobed or 0, 5-nerved, keeled, smooth except for prickle-teeth at base and extending from callus to outer nerve below, and on keel above; awn 0 or 0.5-1.5 mm. Palea (4.5)-5-5.7-(6.5) mm, ≥ lemma, acute, shortly (0.2-0.4 mm) bifid, keels toothed towards apex, interkeel hairs above but sometimes to base, flanks short ciliate above. Callus 0.3-0.4-(0.5) mm, upper margins shortly bearded, less so centrally; articulation ± oblique. Rachilla 1-1.3 mm, sparsely short stiff hairy. Lodicules 0.7-1.5 mm, bifid or lobed, usually glabrous but occasionally hair-tipped. Anthers 2.0-3.0 mm, yellow to orange. Gynoecium: ovary 0.6-1.0 mm, ± turbinate, apex glabrous or with hispid hairs; stigma-styles 1.5-2.5 mm. Caryopsis 3-3.5 mm; embryo 0.5 mm; hilum 3 mm. 2 n = 56.

N.: inland in south-west Kaimanawa Mts, north-west Ruahine Range, and Manawatu Gorge, coastal from Cape Turnagain to Cook Strait; S.: Marlborough Sounds, Kaikoura Ranges to Waipara, North Canterbury. Coastal rocks, cliffs and bluffs, limestone except in Kaimanawa Mts; sea level to 100 m on coasts, inland 300-1200 m.

Endemic.

The main habit is straggling, open, conspicuously stoloniferous with prostrate-ascending shoots bearing inflorescences, but plants may form dense clumps of many short stoloniferous shoots of very fine smooth leaves, e.g., CHR 197189 A. P. Druce Waipapa Pt, Kaikoura coast, from a raised gravel beach.

Panicle structure varies from erect, stiff branches, appressed or nearly so, to open, reflexed, sometimes flexuous branches, but this latter character is only sporadically distributed through the collections. Inflorescence length varies over a wide range; at the type locality, the Wellington Coast in Port Nicolson and nearby Cook Strait, inflorescences are shorter than anywhere else. Elsewhere in North Island there is a simple north-south gradient for panicle length. Inflorescences from Marlborough plants, mostly of mountainous limestone areas, are longer than elsewhere. Rachis, branches, and pedicels are glabrous throughout, or very infrequently prickle-toothed in specimens from Cape Palliser to Port Nicolson and Cook Strait. Elsewhere the rachis, branches, and pedicels are toothed to varying extents, commonly glabrous below but toothed above.

Plants referred to as octoploid Festuca multinodis by Connor, H. E. N.Z. J. Bot. 6: 295-308 (1968) do not belong to this taxon; they are a form of F. rubra.