3–5-flowered. Two outer glumes slightly unequal, keeled, acuminate; the lower subulate-lanceolate, 1-nerved; the upper broader and larger, about ⅔ the length of the whole spikelet, lanceolate, 3-nerved. Flowering glumes ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, incurved at the tip, prominently 5-nerved; callus, together with the back and margins for half their length, clothed with crisped silky hairs; upper portion of the glume scabrid. Palea ⅓ shorter than the glume, linear-oblong, bifid at the tip.—Buch. N.Z. Grasses, t. 42. Festuca foliosa, Hook. f. Fl. Antarct. i. 99, t. 55.
Stewart Island: Herekopere Island and headlands near the South Cape, Kirk! The Snares: Kirk! Chapman! Auckland and Campbell Islands: Abundant, Hooker, Buchanan! Kirk! Chapman! Antipodes Island: Kirk! Macquarie Island: Fraser, Professor Scott, A. Hamilton!
Easily distinguished from all other New Zealand species by the great size, very broad flat leaves, and large dense panicle. It is closely allied to the Kerguelen Island P. Cookii, Hook, f., and to the well-known tussock grass of the Falkland Islands and Fuegia, P. flabellata, Hook. f. (Dactylis cæspitosa, Forst.). The flowers seem to be partly if not altogether unisexual, most of the specimens that I have seen being females with the anthers much reduced in size.
2. P. novæ-zealandiæ, Hack. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxxv. (1903) 381.—Perennial, tufted, innovation -shoots intravaginal or mixed. Culms erect, 3–18 in. high, slender, glabrous, 3-noded, upper node about the middle of the culm. Leaves usually much shorter than the culms, 2–10 in. long, 112–14 in. broad, linear, suddenly acuminate at the tip, flat or those of the innovation-shoots complicate, erect, quite glabrous, finely striate; sheaths lax, compressed; ligules ovate, acuminate, often dentate. Panicle broadly ovate to ovateoblong or linear-oblong, dense, nodding or more rarely erect, 1–4 in. long; rhachis smooth, terete; branches binate or ternate, once or twice divided, smooth, capillary. Spikelets pale-green or whitish-green, much compressed, elliptic-oblong, ¼–⅓ in. long, 5–6-flowered. Two outer glumes slightly unequal, acuminate, glabrous; lower subulate-lanceolate, 1-nerved; upper longer and broader, about half as long as the whole spikelet or rather more, lanceolate, 3-nerved. Flowering glumes lanceolate, acuminate, often incurved at the tip, usually 5-nerved, but the intermediate nerve on each side faint and sometimes obsolete, callus with a tuft of crisped woolly hairs more than half as long as the glume, remainder of the glume glabrous, smooth. Palea ⅓ shorter than the glume, linear-oblong, bidentate, pubescent on the keels.—P. foliosa var. b, Hook. f. Handb. N.Z. Fl. 338; Buch. N.Z. Grasses, t. 43. Festuca foliosa, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 308 (not of Fl. Antarct.).
Var. subvestita,' Hack. l.c.—Flowering glumes rather longer, clothed with crisp hairs in the lower ⅓, exterior lateral nerves more prominent. Spikelets often tinged with violet.
