Ehrharta longiflora Sm.
annual veld grass
Erect, tufted annuals, 60-100 cm. Leaf-sheath obviously nerved, keeled, submembranous, with sparse short hairs near base. Ligule c. 2 mm, deeply lacerate. Collar with hairs to 2.0 mm. Leaf-blade to 20 cm × 10 mm, flat, glabrous or with scattered long hairs, margins scaberulous. Culm 25-50-(80) cm, geniculate at base, internodes minutely scaberulous just below panicle and nodes. Panicle to 20 cm, narrow, open, with few, short, slender branches; pedicels filiform, long hairy. Spikelets 14-20 mm, light purplish green. Glumes unequal, < spikelets, membranous, margins ciliate; lower 2.5-3.5 mm, 5-nerved, elliptic, narrowed above to acute tip, upper c. 4.5 mm, 9-nerved, broadly ovate, tip mucronate. Lemmas of Ø florets similar in shape, indistinctly 5-7-nerved, coriaceous, scabrid, conspicuously awned to c. 9 mm and with a hinge-like appendage at base; lower < upper, with 3 basal tufts of hairs to 2 mm, upper with 2 less conspicuous tufts. Lemma of ⚥ floret 6-7 mm, 7-nerved, elliptic, subcoriaceous, glabrous, awnless. Palea 5-6 mm, subhyaline, glabrous but finely ciliate-scabrid on keel below. Lodicules 1-1.5 mm, hair-tipped. Stamens 6; anthers c. 1.5 mm. Gynoecium: ovary 1 mm; stigma-styles 1.75 mm. Caryopsis 4-5 × 1-1.5 mm.
N.: Wanganui. Waste places and weed of gardens and their surrounds; locally common.
Naturalised from South Africa.
