Common name: Soft Snowgrass
Poa hiemata Vickery APNI* 
Description: Glabrous, densely caespitose perennial to 0.6 m high, with dense tufts of intravaginal shoots from the lower nodes, rhizomes elongate, vertical. Culms slender, c. 2-noded, above the basal leaves, smooth or lightly scabrous below the panicle, subterete, to c. 60 cm tall, often not much longer than the leaves.
Sheaths smooth or almost so, rather thin, compressed; ligule firmly membranous, truncate, c. 0.5 mm long; blade 5–25 cm long, closely folded or convolute and ± compressed-terete, slender, generally smooth, erect or slightly drooping when older, not or scarcely rigid.
Inflorescence 5–12 cm long, pyramidal at maturity. Spikelets compressed, ovate, 3–5-flowered. Glumes 3-nerved, acute to shortly acuminate. Lemmas acute to obtuse, 5-nerved, web absent or scanty and rather short; palea finely scabrous on the keel above, ciliolate below.
Flowering: Flowers in summer.
Distribution and occurrence: At high elevations on the Australian Alps and on the Brindabella Range, in alpine and subalpine moors and meadows chiefly above 1600 m and especially characteristic of the treeless 'plains' of the alps.
NSW subdivisions: ST
Other Australian states: Vic.
Text by Jacobs, S.W.L., Whalley, R.D.B. & Wheeler, D.J.B. Grasses of New South Wales, Fourth Edition (2008).
Taxon concept: Grasses of New South Wales, Fourth Edition (2008).
APNI* Provides a link to the Australian Plant Name Index (hosted by the Australian National Botanic Gardens) for comprehensive bibliographic data
***The AVH map option provides a detailed interactive Australia wide distribution map drawn from collections held by all major Australian herbaria participating in the Australian Virtual Herbarium project.
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