Classification
Class
Magnoliopsida Brongn.
Order
Poales Small
Family
Gramineae Juss.
Genus
Achnatherum P.Beauv.
 Nomenclature
Scientific Name:
Achnatherum petriei (Buchanan) S.W.L.Jacobs & J.Everett, Telopea 6: 582 (1996)
Synonymy:
  • ≡ Stipa petriei Buchanan, Indig. Grasses N. Zeal. add et corrig. t. 17 (1880)
 Description

Erect, wiry perennial frequently branching at nodes; branching extravaginal; cataphylls short. Leaf-sheath to 3 cm, usually glabrous sometimes retrorsely pubescent. Ligule to 0.5 mm; auricular lobes to 1 mm, symmetrical or asymmetrical, often lightly pubescent. Collar thickened, occasionally with a very small tuft of hairs. Leaf-blade to 30 cm × 0.8 mm diam., narrow, involute, rigid, acicular, glabrous abaxially, adaxially clothed in short white hairs. Culm to 60 cm, wiry, internodes smooth, nodes purple, glabrous except for some very short hairs below. Panicle to 25 cm, narrow; rachis smooth below, scabrid above, branches and pedicels scabrid. Glumes ± equal, to 7 mm, hyaline, shining, pink-suffused, produced into awn-like processes to 0.5 mm, or split at apex, < awn column; lower 1-nerved, upper 3-nerved. Lemma to 5.0 mm, cylindrical, 3- or 5-nerved, margins contiguous, fulvous, clothed in white ± appressed hairs; coma to 0.5 mm, lobes short and inconspicuous; awn to 40 mm, ± straight or weakly 1-geniculate, short stiff hairy, column loosely twisted to 10 mm, arista to 30 mm. Palea = lemma, clothed in long hairs, apex ciliate, 2-nerved. Callus short (to 0.3 mm), oblique, hairs white, to 1 mm. Lodicules 3, one usually emarginate, or entire, 1-nerved, to 1 mm. Anthers to 2.7 mm, weakly penicillate and shortly caudate. Caryopsis 2.5–3.5 mm; hilum linear.

[From: Edgar and Connor (2000) Flora of New Zealand. Volume 5 (second printing).]

 Biostatus
Indigenous (Endemic)
 Bibliography
Buchanan, J. 1880: The Indigenous Grasses of New Zealand (with Addenda et Corrigenda). George Didsbury, Government Printer, Wellington.
de Lange, P.J.; Norton, D.A.; Courtney, S.P.; Heenan, P.B.; Barkla, J.W.; Cameron, E.K.; Hitchmough, R.; Townsend, A.J. 2009: Threatened and uncommon plants of New Zealand (2008 revision). New Zealand Journal of Botany 47: 61–96. [Naturally uncommon]
de Lange, P.J.; Norton, D.A.; Heenan, P.B.; Courtney, S.P.; Molloy, B.P.J.; Ogle, C.C.; Rance, B.D. 2004: Threatened and uncommon plants of New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Botany 42(1): 45–76.
de Lange, P.J.; Rolfe, J.R.; Barkla J.W.; Courtney, S.P.; Champion, P.D.; Perrie, L.R.; Beadel, S.N.; Ford, K.A.; Breitwieser, I.; Schönberger, I.; Hindmarsh-Walls, R.; Heenan, P.B.; Ladley, K. 2018: Conservation status of New Zealand indigenous vascular plants, 2017. New Zealand Threat Classification Series. No. 22. [Declining]
de Lange, P.J.; Rolfe, J.R.; Champion, P.D.; Courtney, S.P.; Heenan, P.B.; Barkla, J.W.; Cameron, E.K.; Norton, D.A.; Hitchmough, R.A. 2013: Conservation status of New Zealand indigenous vascular plants, 2012. New Zealand Threat Classification Series 3. Department of Conservation, Wellington. [Naturally Uncommon]
Jacobs, S. W. L.; Everett, J.; Connor, H. E.; Edgar, E. 1989: Stipoid grasses in New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Botany 27: 569–582. [as Stipa petriei Buchanan]
Jacobs, S.W.L.; Everett, J. 1996: Austrostipa, a new genus, and new names for Australasian species formerly included in Stipa (Gramineae). Telopea 6(4): 579–595.