Classification
 Nomenclature
Scientific Name:
Chionochloa flavicans Zotov, New Zealand J. Bot. 1: 91 (1963)
Synonymy:
  • = Danthonia antarctica var. α elata Hook.f., Bot. Antarct. Voy. II. (Fl. Nov.-Zel.) Part I, 302 (1853)
 Description

Tall, stout, often sprawling, flabellate tussock with numerous coloured cataphylls and extravaginal shoots, and persistent leaves and sheaths. Leaf-sheath to 15 cm, pinkish or purplish, chartaceous, entire, becoming fibrous, keeled, glabrous or with a few long hairs, apical tuft of hairs to 1 mm. Ligule to 0.7 mm. Leaf-blade to 75 cm × 8 mm, keeled, persistent, glabrous except for some short hairs above ligule and prickle-teeth on margins and abaxially at apex. Culm to 1.5 m, internodes glabrous. Inflorescence to 30 cm, clavate, dense and compact, not naked below; rachis smooth below, branches and pedicels densely scabrid and with some long hairs at branch axils. Spikelets of up to 4 distant florets. Glumes to 7 mm, broad, shallowly bifid, sometimes purpled, margins ciliate, prickle-teeth adaxially above, < nearest lemma lobes; lower 3-nerved, upper 5-nerved. Lemma to 6 mm; hairs dense on margin, usually fewer or none aside central nerve, rarely reaching sinus, prickle-teeth above adaxially and abaxially on nerves; lateral lobes up to 2.5 mm, conspicuously awned adjacent to a small lobe; central awn to 16 mm, reflexed, column absent. Palea to 6 mm, interkeel with prickle-teeth above. Callus to 1.5 mm, hairs to 4 mm. Rachilla to 0.25 mm. Lodicules to 1 mm. Anthers to 4 mm. Gynoecium: ovary to 1 mm; stigma-styles to 3 mm. Caryopsis to 3 mm. 2n= 42.

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

 Biostatus
Indigenous (Endemic)
Number of subspecific taxa in New Zealand within Chionochloa flavicans Zotov
CategoryNumber
Indigenous (Endemic)2
Total2
 Bibliography
Connor, H.E. 1991: Chionochloa Zotov (Gramineae) in New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Botany 29: 219–283.
Hooker, J.D. 1852–1853 ("1853"): The Botany of the Antarctic Voyage of H.M. Discovery Ships Erebus and Terror in the Years 1839–1843, under the command of Captain Sir James Clark Ross. II. Flora Novae-Zelandiae. Part I. Flowering plants. Lovell Reeve, London.
Zotov, V.D. 1963: Synopsis of the grass subfamily Arundinoideae in New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Botany 1: 78–136.