Flora of New Zealand Series

; Holotype: CHR 320475! W. G. Lee Plateau Creek, Murchison Mts, Fiordland S140 594403, young, fertile sites beneath bluff system, Feb. 1979.

Stout tussock with many persistent, old, bladeless, straw-coloured or purple-suffused, keeled, entire, hairy sheaths. Leaf-sheath to 15 cm, apical tuft of hairs to 2 mm. Leaf-blade to 60 cm × 10 mm, twisting above, adaxially occasionally with some long hairs and abundant prickle-teeth, disarticulating at ligule. Culm to 1 m, sheath margins hairy. Inflorescence to 20 cm. Plate 10D.

S.: Mountains of Canterbury, Westland, Otago and Fiordland south of 43 30'. Grasslands to 1700 m, occasionally to 2000 m.