Elymandra Stapf

Tall annuals or perennials. Leaf-blades linear; ligule scarious. Inflorescence composed of paired (rarely solitary) racemes long-exserted from narrow spatheoles and gathered into a false panicle; racemes slender, with up to 10 homogamous pairs; raceme-bases filiform, unequal, rarely deflexed; internodes and pedicels linear. Sessile spikelet ± terete; callus narrowly obtuse to pungent, applied obliquely to the top of the internode with its tip free; lower glume coriaceous, rounded on the back and sides, at length dark brown; upper glume nearly always awned; lower floret reduced to a hyaline lemma; upper lemma stipitiform, bilobed, passing between the teeth into an awn with ± hairy column. Caryopsis narrowly ellipsoid. Pedicelled spikelet ♂ or barren, narrowly lanceolate, olive green tinted with brown, the callus well developed.