Flora of New Zealand Series

Type locality: Mount Alta. Type: K, Hector. (See T.R.S.N.Z. 65, 1935, 221.)

Tufted rigid herb with short pseudo-stem arising from us. simple stock. Lvs rigid, coriac., narrow-ensiform tapering regularly to pungent apex; lamina ± 20-30-45 cm. × 6-9 mm.; upper surface glab., very finely striate to smooth; lower surface strongly grooved, densely clad in thin appressed white satiny tomentum to almost glab. (in different plants); margins slightly recurved, entire. Sheath abruptly widened from somewhat constricted lamina-base, 3-4-(8) cm. × 10-15 mm., thin, grooved, clad in appressed white satiny tomentum. Scape ± 15-30 cm. long, rather slender, white with ± floccose tomentum, ± concealed by bract-sheaths. Bracts us. ∞, crowded; lowest lflike, to 6 cm. long, remainder decreasing regularly in size, uppermost c. 1 cm. long, forming a pseudo-involucre. Capitula 25-50 mm. diam.; phyll. linear-subulate, rigid, indurated, ± 20 mm. long, midrib prominent. Ray-florets very slender, ± 12 mm. long; limb hardly wider than tube, 4-toothed. Disk-florets 6-7 mm. long, tubular, lobes triangular. Achenes 2-3 mm. long, compressed-cylindric, strongly grooved; hairs minute, stiff, very minutely barbellate.

DIST.: S. Montane to subalpine open grassland, herbfield, fellfield throughout, mainly east of divide.