Flora of New Zealand Series

crowfoot grass

Compact annual tufts 10-60-(90) cm, shoots at first spreading out very close to the ground, culms later ascending; branching often intravaginal near base. Leaf-sheath coriaceous; margins with a few long, soft hairs near ligule. Ligule 0.3-1 mm, truncate, ciliate. Leaf-blade 6-30 cm × 2-7 mm, usually folded, sometimes flat, coriaceous, often with a few, scattered, long, fine hairs; margins, midrib and subobtuse tip minutely scabrid. Culm 2-50 cm, usually geniculate at base, internodes glabrous. Inflorescence of (1)-2-8-(10) subdigitate spikes, the lowermost ± distant; spikes (1.5)-5-8-(12) cm × 4-6-(8) mm; rachis scabrid on margins, with hairs 0.5-2 mm at base. Spikelets 4.5-6 mm, 3-6-flowered, light green to brownish olive. Glumes < spikelet, membranous, subacute to subobtuse, keel scabrid, thickened, narrowly winged; lower 1.5-2.5 mm, 1-nerved, upper 2-4.5 mm, (3)-5-nerved. Lemma 2.5-5 mm, (1)-3-nerved, subacute to subobtuse, keel thickened, scabrid, with a subsidiary nerve on each side above. Palea 2-3 mm, keels winged. Lodicules 0.4-0.6 mm, membranous, glabrous, nerveless, ± truncate to acutely asymmetrically bilobed. Anthers 0.3-0.9 mm. Caryopsis 1.2-1.5 × 0.7-1 mm, ellipsoid to elliptic-oblong and truncate, red-brown to almost black, obliquely rugose, concave on hilar face; hilum small, basal, round.

N.: North and South Auckland, Bay of Plenty, Taranaki, Manawatu; S.: Canterbury (Christchurch, Lincoln); K. Waste ground, roadsides, farm tracks, poor damp pasture, weed of gardens and lawns.

Naturalised.

A pantropical sp. now almost cosmopolitan and weedy.