Poa hookeri
VickerySlender, tufted perennial, culms erect, to c. 60 cm high. Leaves very fine, smooth to scabrous or lightly scabrous-pubescent; sheath pale; blade inrolled-terete, to c. 15(–30) cm long and 0.5 mm diam.; ligule membranous 1–4.5 mm long, obtuse to acuminate. Inflorescence a loosely contracted panicle or at length spreading to 12 cm long and 8 cm wide. Spikelets 2–5-flowered, 3–5 mm long, pale green or occasionally purplish; glumes 3-nerved or the lower 1-nerved, thin-textured and relatively narrow, 1.5–2.5 mm long, the upper slightly larger than the lower, smooth or shortly scabrous; lemma 5-nerved, 2–2.5 mm long, glabrous or shortly hairy on the lower part of the keel, or with minute hairs covering the lower part of the lemma; web absent. Flowers Oct.–Feb.
EGL, EGU, HSF, MonT, VAlp. Also ?NSW, Tas. Known from only a few collections in Victoria in dryish, rocky sites, mostly at altitudes above 600 m and often on limestone-derived soils (upper Tambo River catchment, Cowombat Flat near the Cobberas, Mt Tingaringy on the Victoria-NSW border).
Collections from lower altitudes near Buchan differ from other Victorian specimens in being rather robust tussocks with leaves approaching 50 cm long, but otherwise with features of typical P. hookeri.
Vickery (1970) regarded P. hookeri as `an imperfectly known species' and queried the value of the long ligule as a valid character to separate this from other closely related species such as P. sieberiana Spreng. (particularly var. cyanophylla Vickery) and P. rodwayi Vickery.
Walsh, N.G. (1994). Poaceae. In: Walsh, N.G.; Entwisle, T.J., Flora of Victoria Vol. 2, Ferns and Allied Plants, Conifers and Monocotyledons, pp. 356–627. Inkata Press, Melbourne.
Spinning
