Gastridium ventricosum (Gouan) Schinz & Thell.
nit grass
Erect tufts (9)-18-65 cm. Leaf-sheath submembranous, striate, smooth or sometimes scabrid, sometimes ± inflated. Ligule 1-3 mm, striate, truncate or rounded, becoming lacerate, abaxially often minutely scabrid. Leaf-blade 2-10 cm × 1-3 mm, scabrid, or sometimes smooth abaxially; margins scabrid, tip very finely acuminate. Culm erect or geniculate at base, internodes glabrous. Panicle 2-12-(14.5) × 0.6-1.5 cm, shining, lanceolate or cylindric, usually tapered above; rachis and branches minutely scabrid, hidden. Spikelets 3.5-5 mm, light green. Glumes smooth, swollen and rounded below, narrowed above and tapering to long-acuminate tip, keel scabrid; lower = spikelet, upper c. ¾ length of spikelet. Lemma 0.9-1.2 mm, hyaline, sparsely short-hairy near margins and in upper ⅓; awn 3-4.2 mm, very fine, geniculate, or 0 within the same spikelet. Palea hyaline, glabrous. Anthers 0.6-0.8 mm. Caryopsis 0.7-0.9 × 0.4-0.6 mm.
N.: North Cape southwards to Waikato and at Wellington; S.: Marlborough (Blenheim), Canterbury (near Ashburton). Open pasture, roadsides and waste places.
Naturalised.
Indigenous to Europe, North Africa and western Asia.
