Plants perennial, glaucous,cespitose tussocky but sometimes rhizomatous.
Culms 50-100 cm tall, 0.6-1.2 mm thick, erect; branching intravaginal; nodes consipuously black to red-brown; internodes glabrous.
Basal leaves: sheaths keeled, striate, becoming fibrous, usually glabrous, occasionally sparsely hairy or with hairs about 1 mm long mixed with shorter hairs; auricles absent or 0.3-0.5 mm, clasping, occasionaly with 1-2 mm hairs; collar thickened, usually shortly and stiffly hairy, occasionally glabrous, with 1-1.5 mm marginal hairs; ligule 0.3-0.5 mm, ciliate; blade 20-30 cm long, 2-4 mm wide, glaucous, flat or involute, abaxial surface usually glabrous, occasionally with hairs to 1 mm long, adaxial surface densely hairy near the base, margins occasionally with hairs to 1 mm on lower portion.
Inflorescence 18-25 cm long, stiff, with 3-7 widely divergent spikelets; rachis with smooth, glabrous surfaces, and sparsely scabrous to shortly hairy margins; middle internodes 8-30 mm long.
Spikelets solitary at each node, widely divergent from the rachis, 30-50 mm long, with 6-12 (occasionally more) florets.
Glumes more or less equal, 5-10 mm, 0.7-1 mm wide, 3-5-veined, acute to shortly awned; margins chartaceous and ciliate. Callus about 0.75 mm, with hairs on the sides. Lemmas 10-14 mm long, mostly glabrous and smooth, scabrous on the lower portion of the margins and distally, tip occasionally minutely bifid, awned, awn 22-45 mm long, more or less recurved to straight. Palea 6-13 mm long, tip bifid. Lodicules 1-2.5 mm. Anthers 4-9 mm long.
NEED CALLUS RELATIVE SHAPECaryopsis 7-10 mm long; embryo 1.6-2 mm long.
NEW ZEALAND: South Island, inland basins of Central Otago.
Open, dry, short-tussock grasslands at 150-500 m.
2n = 42, presumably StWY
Described 1982 as a species of Elymus. Transferred to Anthosachne in 2006.
Formal citation of name
Anthosachne aprica (┴.L÷ve & Connor) C. Yen & J.L. Yang
Edgar, E. and H.E. Connor. 2000. Flora of New Zealand, volume 5. Grasses. Manaaki Whenua Press, Lincoln, New Zealand.