Flora of New Zealand Series

Annuals, 30-55 cm, loosely tufted. Leaf-sheath softly short-pubescent; upper sheaths glabrous. Ligule 1-2 mm, denticulate. Leaf-blade 5-10 cm × 1.5-3 mm, short-hairy or ± glabrous; tip acute. Culm 5-45 cm, erect or ascending, internodes glabrous. Panicle 5-10 cm, erect, rather dense, fan-shaped, or nodding and slightly spreading; branches usually « spikelets, filiform, minutely scabrid, tipped by 1-2 spikelets. Spikelets 3.5-6 cm, 5-8-flowered, oblong-lanceolate to later wedge-shaped and gaping, light green to purple-suffused. Glumes unequal, very narrow, acuminate, membranous, glabrous or with short to long hairs; lower 8-11 mm, 1-nerved, subulate, upper 10-14 mm, 3-nerved, linear-lanceolate. Lemma 12-20 mm, 7-nerved, rounded, narrowly oblong-lanceolate, scabrid or with short to long hairs, membranous with hyaline margins, narrowed above to 2 acute to acuminate lobes, 2-3 mm; awn c. 20 mm. Palea c. ¾ length of lemma, keels sparsely ciliate, interkeel glabrous or minutely hairy. Callus with minute hairs. Rachilla 2-2.5 mm, scabrid. Anthers 0.7-1 mm. Caryopsis c. 13 × 1.8 mm.

N.: Napier, Palmerston North and Wellington City. Waste ground and ballast.

Naturalised from Mediterranean.