Chloris gayana Kunth
Rhodes grass
Tufted perennials, brownish green, tough, branched above, to 1 m; stolons strong, wiry. Leaf-sheath keeled, chartaceous, often faintly purplish. Ligule 0.4-0.6-(0.8) mm, minutely ciliate. Collar hairs 3-5 mm. Leaf-blade 10-30 cm × (1.5)-3-6 mm, folded to flat, stiff, narrow linear-lanceolate, strongly keeled, minutely scabrid, adaxially sometimes with a row of long hairs at base; margins thickened, much-narrowed to fine acicular tip. Culm 60-80 cm, ± flattened and geniculate at base, internodes slightly scabrid below inflorescence. Racemes 7-18, spike-like, ± digitate, tawny brown, 4.5-7.5-(10) cm × 3-3.5 mm, erect, bunched together, bearing close-set shortly pedicelled green to golden-brown or brownish spikelets; rachis slender, short-scabrid, pubescent near base. Glumes unequal, membranous, 1-nerved, keel sparsely prickle-toothed; lower 1.2-1.7 mm, narrow-lanceolate, glabrous, acute, upper 2-3 mm, elliptic-lanceolate, sparsely scabrid, ± truncate above, midnerve excurrent forming awn 0.2-0.5 mm. Spikelets 3-flowered. Basal ⚥ floret: lemma 2.5-3.5 mm, 3-nerved, lateral nerves and callus sparsely hairy with longer hairs near apex, midnerve scabrid above, awn fine, scabrid, 1.4-3 mm; palea 2.5-3 mm, keels purple, minutely scabrid in upper ½, interkeel ± smooth, minutely scabrid near notched apex; anthers 1.4-1.8 mm; gynoecium with ovary c. 0.4 mm, stigma-styles c. 1.5 mm; caryopsis not seen. Median Ø floret: lemma 2-3 mm, 3-nerved, oblong, scabrid near almost truncate apex, awn 0.4-1.5 mm, scabrid; palea 2-3 mm, similar to palea of basal floret but ± entire; anthers when present, pollen-sterile, 0.7-1.3 mm. Apical Ø floret: lemma empty, 0.3-1.2 mm, inrolled, truncate, minutely scabrid above, sometimes mucronate, borne at tip of glabrous rachilla 1.1-1.5 mm.
N.: Auckland Province, scattered; K.: Raoul Id. Coastal, behind dunes in grassy flats, also in pasture.
Naturalised from Africa.
