Common name: Long-leaved Wallaby Grass
Rytidosperma longifolium (R.Br.) Connor & Edgar APNI* Synonyms: Notodanthonia longifolia (R.Br.) Veldkamp APNI*
Danthonia longifolia R.Br. APNI*
Description: Erect, densely caespitose perennials to c. 80 cm tall.
Culms often not greatly exceeding the leaves, moderately slender to rather stout, smooth or minutely scaberulous, 5–many-noded. Sheaths often becoming loose from the culms, striate, ± smooth, c. 6 mm wide when flattened; ligule extremely reduced, hairs 0.1–0.2 mm long or absent; blade becoming inrolled-filiform above, firm, somewhat curved or flexuose.
Inflorescence many-flowered, more or less lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, 5–15 cm long, the branches more or less erect. Spikelets c. 5–6-flowered, pale, greenish to straw-coloured, the florets not very closely packed. Glumes with rather broad membranous margins, 5-nerved, 8–13 mm long. Lemmas c. 2–2.8 mm long, lanceolate, villous, 9-nerved, pale; lateral lobes narrow and delicate, tapering evenly into the setae; central awn shortly exceeding the lateral lobes, delicate, only loosely twisted; palea rather narrowly lanceolate to oblanceolate, villous on the back.
Distribution and occurrence: Grows in open forest country on rocky or sandy soils, occasionally in damp places.
NSW subdivisions: NC, CC, SC, NT, CT, ST, CWS, SWS, NWP
Other Australian states: Qld
Text by Jacobs, S.W.L., Whalley, R.D.B. & Wheeler, D.J.B.
Taxon concept: Grasses of New South Wales, Fourth Edition (2008); name update Aug 2012
APNI* Provides a link to the Australian Plant Name Index (hosted by the Australian National Botanic Gardens) for comprehensive bibliographic data
***The AVH map option provides a detailed interactive Australia wide distribution map drawn from collections held by all major Australian herbaria participating in the Australian Virtual Herbarium project.
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