Plants forming dense hummocks 0.3–1.3 m high, to 1.5 m wide, sometimes with droplets of a reddish black non-resinous secretion on leaves. Flowering culms extending c. 0.5–1 m above foliage. Leaves: sheath glabrous, or ciliate on outer margin; auricles rounded or acute, to 6 mm long, cartilaginous, pubescent at base or ciliate on margins; blade curling with age, 26–50 cm long, 0.7–1.3 mm wide, closely nerved on lower surface, with pseudopetiole to 9 mm long. Panicles usually open, 11–30 cm long, 4–10 (–17) cm wide, often partly enclosed in a loose floral bract; axis usually unbranched near tip; branches to 14 cm long, simple or sparsely divided. Spikelets distant, cuneate to elliptic, turgid, 5–12 mm long and (2–) 4–6 mm wide including awns, straw-coloured at maturity, closely 3–9-flowered; pedicel to 25 mm long, slender, wider at top; rachilla internodes c. 0.5 mm long, shiny. Glumes 5–8 mm long, acute, obtuse or shortly lobed, indurated or margins membranous near base, 3 (–5)-nerved, glabrous, sometimes ciliolate on upper margins; midnerve scabrous, extended as an awnlet 0.5–1.5 mm long. Callus blunt, 0.5–0.7 mm long, with stiff hairs to 3 mm long. Basal lemma: body 4–5.5 mm long, cartilaginous to indurated, rounded or obtusely carinate, 5-nerved, with long spreading hairs on lower back or only on margins and nerves; midlobe awn-like, often recurved, 1.2–3 mm long; lateral lobes minute, flat, triangular. Palea narrowly elliptic, nearly as long as lemma body, entire or notched and ciliolate at apex; body glabrous; keels wingless, scaberulous-ciliate. Anthers 2–3 mm long.
It grows on sandstoneand coarse conglomerate plateaux, escarpments, gorges and massive outcropsamong boulders and extensive rock pavements, in red or yellow shallow or deepsand, often in gullies, depressions, rock crevices and near seasonal streams.
Home