Flora of New Zealand Series

; Lectotype: WELT 59604 (Buchanan's folio)! without locality, collector, or date (designated by Edgar 1986 op. cit. p. 442).

Small, blue-green perennial, 10-20 cm at flowering with culms far overtopping leaves, from a woody, much-branched rhizome, with wiry, very long-creeping roots at nodes and numerous fine rootlets; branching intravaginal; leaf-blades disarticulating at ligule. Leaf-sheath light cream to later greyish brown, much wider than leaf-blade, glabrous, membranous, sparsely ribbed; margins very wide hyaline. Ligule 1-5 mm, apically glabrous, tapered, entire, abaxially scabrid near base or smooth, occasionally extending as a rim-like membranous contra-ligule. Leaf-blade 0.5-2.5 cm, rolled and c. 0.5 mm diam., glabrous; margins sparsely prickle-toothed, slightly narrowed to firm abruptly shortly curved, sometimes pungent tip. Culm (3)-5-15 cm, with 1-2 small cauline leaves, internodes glabrous. Panicle 1.5-3.5 cm, lax; rachis glabrous, branches capillary, smooth or very finely scabrid, with 1-2 spikelets at branchlet tips. Spikelets 4-8 mm, (2)-3-5-flowered, light grey-green. Glumes subequal, 2-3.5 mm, 3-nerved, elliptic-ovate, midnerve scabrid near subobtuse tip, margins often finely scabrid. Lemma 3-4 mm, 5-nerved, oblong-elliptic, obtuse, short-pubescent throughout lower ⅓ to ½ but central internerves sometimes glabrous, scabrid above on midnerve and occasionally towards tip; margins scabrid above. Palea 2.5-3.5 mm, keels ciliate-scabrid, interkeel minutely hairy on lower ½. Callus ringed by short soft hairs. Rachilla 0.5-1 mm, usually ciliate; prolongation twice as long. Lodicules 0.5 mm. Anthers 1.8-3 mm. Caryopsis c. 1.5-2 × 0.5 mm.