Perennial plants 60–120 cm high, mostly glabrous on culms and leaves; base slightly thickened or knotty, pubescent. Culms simple or branched; nodes glabrous. Leaves: sheaths usually c. half as long as culm internodes; blade to 25 cm long, setaceous, white-scabrous. Panicles open and drooping, 7–15 cm long, (1–) 2.5–4.5 cm wide. Glumes obliquely attached (distant by c. 0.6 mm), subequal or the upper glume longer, muticous or mucronate, usually 11–13-nerved, smooth, glabrous; lower glume 8–14 mm long; upper glume 9.5–15 mm long. Florets shorter than glumes. Callus bearded. Lemma 5–7 mm long, awned, cartilaginous with narrow hyaline margins, obscurely 5–7-nerved, without grooves, appressed-pubescent over entire back, with submargins ciliate; awn 8–14 mm long. Palea bifid into 2 awns 6–11.5 mm long, appressed-pubescent between keels. Caryopsis 2.8–4 mm long.
A common plant of sandy seasonally flooded habitats (flood plains,seepage slopes, along creeks, and the margins of freshwater marshes, swamps,springs in gorge floors, lakes and billabongs); also recorded from coastal sanddunes, rocky hillslopes and plateaux, often in association with sandstone andlaterite.
Home