Alopecurus aequalis Sobol.
orange foxtail
Annuals or short-lived perennials, with culms usually many-noded and ascending from a geniculate or prostrate base, often rooting at nodes. Leaf-sheath very light brown, glabrous, striate, subhyaline, lower sheaths usually purplish. Ligule (1)-2.5-5 mm, membranous, obtuse, entire, glabrous, but abaxially with short fine hairs near base. Leaf-blade 3.5-8 cm × 1-2.5 mm, flat, finely ribbed, minutely scabrid on ribs and margins, tapering to acute, long-triangular tip. Culm 15-25-(35) cm, internodes ridged, glabrous. Panicle 2-5.5 cm, spike-like, with densely crowded silver-green spikelets. Glumes 1.5-2.5 mm, ± equal, 3-nerved, narrowly elliptic-oblong, blunt, membranous, with scattered hairs, keeled, keel silky-ciliate, margins united near base. Lemma ≈ glumes, 4-nerved, broadly elliptic, very blunt, thinly membranous, glabrous, keeled, margins united below for c. ½ length; awn 0.8-1.5 mm, delicate, inserted near midpoint of keel, scarcely reaching top of lemma or projecting c. 0.5 mm beyond glumes. Palea 0. Anthers 0.6-1.2 mm, bright orange or golden-yellow. Caryopsis 1-1.6 × 0.7-0.8 mm.
N.: Pukekohe and near Gisborne; S.: to east of Main Divide and at Fiordland lakes. In swampy ground, lowland and coastal or in inland basins.
Naturalised from Eurasia.
