Austrostipa flavescens (Labill.) S.W.L.Jacobs & J.Everett

Tall, coarse, dense, erect or slightly decumbent perennial shortly rhizomatous tussock with close-set, white shoots, swollen at base; branching extravaginal; cataphylls numerous. Leaf-sheath to 2 cm, finely scabrid, terminating in a tuft of hairs to 1.5 mm. Ligule to 0.2 mm, ciliate. Leaf-blade to 10 cm × l mm diam., tightly rolled, rigid, abaxially scaberulous with short retrorse prickle-teeth, adaxially papillate and with occasional hairs and prickles, more so near collar; margins antrorsely scabrid. Culm to 50 cm, nodes pubescent, internodes below nodes pubescent, glabrous elsewhere. Panicle to 20 cm, contracted, verticels with many branches; rachis, branches and pedicels short stiff hairy. Glumes unequal, purple-suffused, green below, produced into fine hyaline awn-like processes 1 mm long; lower to 16.5 mm, 3-nerved, glabrous below ± reaching top of awn column, upper to 10 mm, 5-nerved, nerves with short stiff hairs below, becoming scabrid above except at tip. Lemma to 6 mm, 7-nerved, cylindrical, clothed in grey hairs becoming golden brown at maturity, lobes small (0.2 mm) or absent; coma to 2 mm; awn to 40 mm, 2-geniculate, column short hairy, tightly twisted, to 8 mm, loosely twisted to 8 mm above, arista to 25 mm. Palea weakly 2-nerved, internerve hairs few, apex ciliolate. Callus to 1.6 mm, hairs to 2.5 mm. Lodicules 3, ligulate, to 2 mm. Anthers to 2 mm, penicillate.

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