Deyeuxia avenoides (Hook.f.) Buchanan
≡Agrostis avenoides Hook.f. Handbk N.Z. Fl. 330 (1864)
≡Calamagrostis avenoides (Hook.f.) Cockayne N.Z. Dept Lands Rep. Bot. Surv. Tongariro Natl Park 35 (1908)
≡Deyeuxia avenoides (Hook.f.) Buchanan var. avenoides (autonym Hackel in Cheeseman 1906 op. cit. p. 871);
Lectotype: K! Sinclair & Haast Prov. Canterbury, New Zealand, 1860-1 (designated by Edgar 1995 op. cit. p. 8).
=D. avenoides var. brachyantha Hack. in Cheeseman Man. N.Z. Fl. 871 (1906);
Lectotype: W 37901! T. F. C[heeseman] Tokoroa Plains, Taupo [Jan. 1884] (No 1189 to Hackel) (designated by Edgar 1995 op. cit. p. 8).
mountain oat grass
Dark green to grey-green usually slender tufts, (12)-20-110 cm; branching extravaginal. Leaf-sheath firmly membranous, obviously ribbed, smooth, or rarely scabrid near ligule, brownish, sometimes purplish. Ligule 0.5-4.5 mm, truncate or tapered, ciliate, abaxially with very minute hairs. Leaf-blade (2)-4-15-(24) cm × 0.3-1.5 mm diam., inrolled, abaxially smooth, very rarely scabrid, adaxially scabrid, margins scabrid, tip acute, scabrid. Culm (7.5)-15-75 cm, varying in diameter, usually 0.3-0.5 mm diam. in plants with cleistogamous flowers and 0.8-2.5-(3) mm diam. in plants with chasmogamous flowers, erect or curved upwards from decumbent base, internodes glabrous. Panicle (1)-3.5-20-(28) cm × 1.5-17 mm, erect or ± nodding, shining, lanceolate, cylindric above, narrowly branched with spikelets densely crowded throughout, lower branches ± distant; rachis smooth, branches and pedicels sparsely scaberulous. Spikelets 3-7 mm, 1-(2)-flowered, light green to purplish green. Glumes 1-nerved, lanceolate, acute to acuminate, smooth, midnerve minutely scabrid in upper ⅔. Lemma 2.8-5.3 mm, ≈ glumes, firmly membranous, minutely scabrid-papillose, narrow elliptic-lanceolate, involute, apex acute or occasionally finely bifid; awn 4.5-8.5 mm, from lower ⅓ of lemma and overtopping glumes. Palea ≈ lemma, keels scabrid in upper ⅔, tip acute to subacute. Callus hairs few, to c. 1 mm, ⅕-⅓ length of lemma or shorter. Rachilla prolongation (0.5)-0.8-1.5-(2) mm, tipped by an almost equally long, slender tuft of fine hairs reaching to ⅔ length of lemma. Lodicules 0.5-1 mm, ovate-lanceolate, subacute. Anthers 0.2-0.7-(1.2) mm in cleistogamous flowers, (0.5)-0.8-1.4-(2) mm in chasmogamous flowers. Caryopsis 1.5-2.3 × 0.4-0.9 mm.
N.: throughout; S.: throughout; St.; Ch. Open forest, scrub, and tussock grassland; lowland to alpine.
Endemic.
