Agrostis subulata Hook.f.
; Holotype: K! J. D. Hooker 1627 Alpine grass; grows rather prostrate on the highest rocks on the mts of Campbell's Island, Dec. 1840.
Small, dense perennials, forming tufts 3-9 cm, with strict leaves often overtopping the light green spike-like panicles; branching intravaginal. Leaf-sheath ± hyaline, light brown, strongly ribbed, finely scabrid especially near margins above. Ligule 0.8-1-(1.6) mm, denticulate, abaxially scabrid. Leaf-blade 1.5-4 cm × 0.3-0.6 mm, firm, inrolled, strongly ribbed, minutely, closely scabrid, tip blunt. Culm hidden among leaves, erect, internodes scabrid. Panicle 1-2 cm, contracted, densely oblong; rachis, branches, and pedicels erect and closely short-scabrid. Spikelets 2-3.3 mm. Glumes subequal, lanceolate, pale green, rarely tinged light purple, with antrorse prickle-teeth or minute hairs, but glabrous near base. Lemma 1.3-1.6 mm, glabrous, distinctly 5-nerved, ovate, truncate, minutely denticulate, margins minutely scabrid near apex, usually awnless, but occasionally with delicate awn to 2 mm from upper ⅓ of midnerve. Palea 0.3-0.4 mm, ovate. Lodicules 0.4 mm. Callus glabrous. Anthers (0.4)-0.5-0.7 mm. Caryopsis c. 1 × 0.5 mm.
A., C. On peat-covered rock-ledges, and in Chionochloa tussock or in herbfields.
Endemic.
CYTOLOGY
Beuzenberg, E. J. and Hair, J. B. N.Z. J. Bot. 21: 13-20 (1983), reported chromosome counts for some indigenous spp.; all were hexaploid. For A. magellanica from Campbell Id, Beuzenberg and Hair recorded n = 42. For A. magellanica from Macquarie Id, Moore, D. M. Bot. Not. 113: 185-191 (1960), recorded 2 n = 72, which does not fit well with other numbers for Agrostis.
