Flora of New Zealand Series

Loosely tufted, erect, perennial, branching at nodes, from short creeping rhizomes; branching extravaginal; cataphylls densely hairy. Leaf-sheath firmly membranous, smooth, sometimes terminating in a tuft of minute hairs. Ligule to 1.5 mm, truncate, entire. Leaf-blade to 40 cm × 5.5 mm, flat or involute, abaxially smooth, but scaberulous towards filiform tip and on margins, adaxially finely scabrid and with scattered soft hairs. Culm to 130 cm, wiry, glabrous. Panicle to 60 cm, lax; branches capillary, ascending to spreading, in dense distant whorls, rachis smooth, branches and pedicels scaberulous. Glumes subequal, 3-4 mm, 3-nerved, acute, often purple; lower slightly keeled and scabrid near tip. Lemma to 2.5 mm, 3-nerved, firmly membranous, smooth, shallowly lobed at apex; awn to 4.5 mm, straight, caducous. Palea ≈ lemma, 2-nerved, glabrous. Callus minute, blunt, glabrous. Lodicules 3. Anthers to 1.7 mm, penicillate.

N.: scattered throughout; S.: vicinity of Nelson City, near Blenheim and Seddon in Marlborough, and also at Christchurch. In waste land, pasture, and on dry banks.

Naturalised from Eurasia.