Flora of New Zealand Series

≡Danthonia oreophila Petrie, T.N.Z.I. 27: 406 (1895)

≡D. pallida Petrie, T.N.Z.I. 26: 271 (1894) non R.Br. (1810); 

Holotype: WELT 36441! D. P[etrie] Kelly's Hill, c. 4000 ft, Otira River, Westland, Jan. 1893.

snow-patch grass

Small, pale tussock with persistent sheaths, and leaves very much shorter than slender flowering culms. Leaf-sheath to 5 cm, pale, shiny, glabrous, chartaceous, persistent, margins undulating, apical tuft of hairs to 3 mm. Ligule 0.5-1 mm. Leaf-blade to 15 cm × 2 mm, U- or V-shaped, persistent, spiralling, pointed, narrower than sheath, keeled, veins few, abaxially with prickle-teeth in upper ⅓, long interrib hairs frequent; adaxially with scattered prickle-teeth; margins with prickle-teeth below becoming glabrous above. Culm to 30 cm, internodes glabrous. Inflorescence to 6 cm, up to 8 spikelets on flexuous, pulvinate branches, glabrous except for few long hairs at branch axils and below spikelets. Spikelets small, solitary, of up to 6 purpled or golden florets. Glumes ± equal, to 10 mm, apex sometimes shortly awned, > adjacent lemma lobes; lower 3-5-nerved, upper 5-7-nerved, margin often long hairy below. Lemma to 4.5 mm; hairs long on margins, few aside central nerves and often few in all internerves, < sinus; lateral lobes to 4.5 mm including awn to 2.5 mm, or shortly acute-triangular; central awn to 5.5 mm reflexed from flat 1.5 mm column. Palea to 5.5 mm. Callus to 1.5 mm, hairs to 2.5 mm. Rachilla to 0.75 mm. Lodicules to 0.6 mm. Anthers to 2.5 mm. Gynoecium: ovary to 0.7 mm; stigma-styles to 3 mm. Caryopsis to 2 mm. 2 n = 42. Plate 9D.

S.: east and west of Main Divide from Nelson to Fiordland. In tussock grasslands, snow hollows and banks; 1000-1850 m.

Endemic.

Eventually some leaf-blades disarticulate at the ligule. Plants in Fiordland sometimes have long hairs on the abaxial surface of emerging leaf-blades. CANU 31438 H. D. Wilson & C. D. Meurk Sealy Lakes, Mt Cook, has glabrous adaxial leaf-blade surfaces.