Setaria paspalidioides Vickery APNI*
Description: Tufted perennial to 0.7 m high.
Culms ribbed, scabrous, especially towards the nodes, channelled on one side, glabrous. Sheaths prominently ribbed, scabrous, long-ciliate on one margin, sprinkled with long, fine hairs; ligule densely ciliate, c. 1.5 mm long; blade flat, linear, slightly narrowed towards the base, acuminate, rather stiff, up to 30 cm long, 9 mm wide, scabrous.
Inflorescence scabrous, especially upwards, narrow, rather sparsely and loosely flowered, with branches erect, rather distant, bristles unequal, very flexuose, up to c. 10 mm long. Spikelets c. 3 mm long, most but not all subtended by a bristle, pallid. Lower glume c. 40% spikelet length, broadly triangular, acute to obtuse; upper 60–80% spikelet length, very broadly elliptical or rotundate. Lower lemma sterile, as long as spikelet, broadly acute, apiculate, 5-nerved; palea c. 75% lemma length, lanceolate. Upper lemma bisexual, coarsely and smoothly transversely rugulose below, crustaceous, shining; palea similarly crustaceous.
Flowering: Flowers in summer.
Distribution and occurrence: Grows in dry woodland.
NSW subdivisions: NWP
Other Australian states: Qld
Text by Illustration in Jacobs, S.W.L., Whalley, R.D.B. & Wheeler, D.J.B. Taxon concept: Grasses of New South Wales, Fourth Edition (2008).
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