Festuca filiformis Pourr.
Tufts of scabrid very fine leaves overtopped by darkly coloured narrow inflorescences with many spikelets of awnless florets. Caespitose or shortly stoloniferous; branching intravaginal. Leaf-sheath 1-5 cm, » wider than leaf-blade, keeled, striate, open to base, glabrous or occasionally with scattered fine hairs; apical auricles c. 0.1 mm, finely ciliate. Collar thickened. Ligule 0.2-0.2 mm. Leaf-blade to 20 cm × 0.3-0.5 mm, elliptical to laterally compressed, capillary, abaxially scattered fine antrorse prickle-teeth, adaxially finely hairy; TS: 5-7 vascular bundles, 1 rib, sclerenchyma continuous. Culm to 30 cm, often a single internode, densely finely hairy or becoming glabrous, sometimes purpled. Panicle 2-4-8 cm, very narrow, of 10-12-14-(20) nodes, (10)-60 spikelets much overlapping; branches solitary, short, mostly appressed to rachis, scarcely naked below; basal branch 1.5-3 cm of 10-20 spikelets, uppermost 6-10 spikelets solitary on short pedicels; rachis prickled on angles below becoming dense above, branches and pedicels densely so. Spikelets 4-7 mm, 3-6 florets, widely opened at anthesis, sometimes bright violet. Glumes unequal, reflexed at anthesis, keeled, prickle-toothed above, margins shortly ciliate; lower 1.0-1.75 mm, 1-nerved, keeled, upper 1.75-2.5 mm, 3 evident or raised nerves, ± obtuse. Lemma 2.5-3 mm, 5-nerved, lobes minute or 0, rounded below, prickle-teeth above on midnerve and below on lateral nerves, margins ciliate below; awn 0, mucro, or 0.1-0.2-0.5 mm; golden to purple especially above. Palea 2.5-3 mm, ≥ lemma, broad, apex narrowed and bifid, keels toothed in upper ⅓, interkeel with some few hairs at apex. Rachilla 0.4-0.5 mm, short hairy. Callus 0.1-0.15 mm, shortly bearded laterally; articulation ± oblique. Lodicules 0.3-0.5 mm, entire or lobed. Anthers 1.4-1.8 mm, yellow or purple-suffused, or purple. Gynoecium: ovary 0.5-0.7 mm, glabrous; stigma-styles 1.0-1.25 mm. Caryopsis 1.4-1.75 mm, sulcate, free; embryo c. 0.3 mm; hilum linear.
N.: central mountains, occasional elsewhere (Hawkes Bay, Manawatu); S.: Nelson (Cobb Valley, Takaka), in east from Marlborough to Otago especially in dry inland basins, and western Southland. Scrub, modified tussock-grasslands, and river terraces and beds; sea level to 1200 m.
Naturalised from Europe.
