Flora of New Zealand Series

; Holotype: CHR 25232! V. D. Zotov Arthurs Pass National Park, [Mt] Blimit, 6000 ft, 21.2.1943.

Low-growing perennial, forming small tufts or cushions to c. 15 cm, with culms usually somewhat overtopping the rather stiff, green or purplish leaves; branching extravaginal; leaf-blades persistent. Leaf-sheath creamy brown or purple, glabrous, hyaline, ribs distinct. Ligule c. 0.5-(1) mm, entire, narrowed to a subobtuse point, glabrous throughout. Leaf-blade 1-5 cm × (0.5)-1-1.5 mm, folded, smooth but with a few prickle-teeth abaxially on midrib near incurved tip, and on margins near ligule and tip. Culm 1-10-(15) cm, internodes glabrous. Panicle 1-4.5 cm, lax; rachis and slender spreading branches and pedicels filiform, smooth, rarely sparsely scabrid below the very few spikelets. Spikelets 3-4 mm, 3-4-flowered, light green, usually purplish. Glumes subequal, smooth, but midnerve prickle-toothed in upper ½; lower 1.5-2.5 mm, 1-nerved, ovate-lanceolate, acute, upper 1.8-3.2 mm, 3-nerved, ovate, subobtuse. Lemma 2-3.5 mm, 5-7-nerved, ovate, obtuse, smooth, but upper ⅓ of midnerve sparsely scabrid. Palea 1.5-2.5 mm, keels short-scabrid, interkeel glabrous. Callus glabrous. Rachilla c. 0.5 mm, glabrous. Lodicules 0.3-0.6 mm. Anthers (0.2)-0.3-(0.5) mm. Caryopsis c. 1 × 0.5 mm.

S.: along and west of Main Divide and in Fiordland, to the east in Southland. Subalpine to alpine, in snow hollows and on stream margins among rocks.

Endemic.

Poa sublimis differs from P. kirkii and other related spp. in being almost smooth in all parts and in having very minute anthers.