Flora of New Zealand Series

green bristle grass

Loosely tufted annuals, (4)-30-70 cm. Leaf-sheath light green or yellowish, submembranous, rounded, to slightly keeled above, glabrous, but margins ciliate. Ligule ciliate, hairs 0.7-1.5 mm. Collar hairs few, long. Leaf-blade 6-10.5-(13.5) cm × 3-5 mm, flat, long-tapering, very soft, minutely scabrid; margins minutely scabrid, tip filiform. Culm (10)-25-45-(60) cm, internodes ridged, scabrid above on ridges. Panicle 3-10 cm × 5-20 mm, very dense, cylindric, tapering above, with very light green or purplish bristles; rachis densely pilose, with short minutely pubescent-scabrid branches, bearing clusters of spikelets on very short discoid-tipped pedicels, each spikelet subtended by 1-3 antrorsely scabrid bristles (4.5-9.5 mm). Spikelets (2)-2.3-3.2 mm, light green, falling entire at maturity. Lower glume 1-3-nerved, c. 1.2-1.7 mm, upper 5-nerved, = spikelet, covering the upper ⚥ floret. Lower floret: lemma = spikelet, 5-7-nerved; palea hyaline, nerveless, to ½ length of lemma. Upper floret: lemma = spikelet, elliptic-oblong, subacute or obtuse, pale creamy, convex, thinly crustaceous, very finely rugose; palea of same texture as lemma, nerves faint, interkeel flat; anthers 0.5-0.9 mm; caryopsis c. 1.5 mm.

N.; S.: scattered throughout; Ch. Crops (potatoes, carrots), waste ground, gardens.

Naturalised from Eurasia.