Eriachne stipacea F.Muell.

Perennial or annual plants 37.5–90 cm high; base slightly thickened, pubescent. Culms simple (rarely branched), hairy with tubercle-based hairs or some glabrous; nodes bearded. Leaves hairy like culms or glabrous, scabrous; sheath slightly shorter than culm internode; blade to 23 cm long, to 7.5 mm wide. Panicles open, 5–13 cm long, 2.4–7 cm wide. Glumes often with lower longer than upper, 7–16 mm long (including awn), with awn to 5 mm long, 7–11-nerved, pilose to hirsute (often only near margins) with tubercle-based hairs or (especially upper glume) glabrous and ±smooth. Florets sometimes cleistogamous, much shorter than glumes. Lemma 3.5–5.5 mm long (including callus), obtuse, awned, abruptly contracted at awn junction, cartilaginous to indurated, faintly 5–7-nerved, without grooves or sometimes with short grooves near awn base, hirsute, with hairs exceeding apex by c. 3 mm; awn (28–) 40–60 mm long, usually recurved, sometimes curved or flexuose or twisted, readily breaking at junction. Palea long-acuminate into beak, bifid into 2 awns 2.5–11 mm long, hirsute between keels with hairs exceeding body apex. Caryopsis 2–3 mm long.

Usually grows on flat to gently undulating country in sandyor sandy loam soils, often in association with laterite and seasonally wet sites.