Parapholis strigosa (Dumort.) C.E.Hubb.
Annual, stiff, erect, ± open tufts, (12)-20-35 cm. Leaf-sheath subcoriaceous, glabrous, rounded, ribs ± inconspicuous. Ligule 0.3-0.6 mm, truncate, erose. Leaf-blade 2-6 cm × c. 2 mm, flat, rolled or folded and < 1 mm diam., abaxially glabrous, adaxially ribbed, with scattered minute hairs on ribs, tip acute. Culm 15-25 cm, tufted or solitary, rigid, usually loosely branched, few- to many-noded, internodes glabrous. Spikes (2.5)-5-12 cm, cylindric, stiffly erect, light green, rachis internodes ≤ spikelets, hollowed on one side, disarticulating horizontally below each spikelet at maturity. Spikelets 4.5-5.5 mm, embedded in cavities in rachis, solitary and alternating on opposite sides of rachis. Glumes ± equal and equalling spikelets, inserted side by side on rachis and appressed to it, 3-5-nerved, rigid, much thickened, narrowly oblong-subulate, acute, hyaline margins minutely papillose. Lemma 4-4.5 mm, ovate-oblong, membranous, 3-nerved, lateral nerves very faint and short. Palea ≈ lemma. Lodicules c. 1 mm. Anthers 2-3 mm. Caryopsis 2.7-3 × 0.6-0.8 mm, enclosed between hardened glumes and segments of rachis.
N.: North Auckland (Hokianga Harbour, Waitemata Harbour), Auckland City and to the west, eastern Coromandel. Coastal salt marsh and grass flats, dry rocky slopes and shell banks on mud flats.
Naturalised from Europe.
An earlier record for Canterbury, as plentiful in salt meadows on Lyttelton Harbour and on Lake Ellesmere, Mason, R. in Knox, G. A. (Ed.) Nat. Hist. Canty 100 (1969), was based on specimens of Hainardia cylindrica.
