Tecticornia australasica (Moq.) Paul G.wilson

Annual 12–40 cm high. Lower branches often procumbent, upper ones erect; internodes narrowly cylindrical, 7–15 mm long, glaucous. Spikes predominantly terminal, occasionally also lateral and sessile, narrowly ovoid and 1 cm long to narrowly cylindrical to 4 cm long, 5–7 mm diam. Bracts semicircular. Flowers 3–5 in each bract. Tepals laterally appressed, acute, plano-convex, united abaxially towards base otherwise free. Seed ovately discoidal, c. 1.5 mm long; testa dark-brown to black with several rows of small grey translucent tubercles on upper margin, otherwise almost smooth.

Low, clayey, seasonally swampy and again completely desiccating localities, cut up after a prolonged dry period in their upper layers into hard clumps by criss-crossing cracks, locally gregarious. According to KOCH the loamy plain was inundated in the rainy season, and had (had) probably connection with the mouth of the Digul river; possibly the soil was, therefore, saline. It is also said to have been collected in Imperata-fields, but we should bear in mind that non-botanists are apt to confound Imperata with other grasses.