Flora of New Zealand Series

sickle grass

Small annual tufts to c. 35 cm. Leaf-sheath submembranous, glabrous, purplish, rounded, ribs ± inconspicuous. Ligule 0.3-1 mm, truncate, erose, projecting slightly upwards at either margin. Leaf-blade (1)-2.5-7.5 cm, flat, or incurved, c. 0.5 mm wide when dry, abaxially glabrous, adaxially with fine, hair-like prickle-teeth on ribs; margins and acute tip scabrid. Culm (1)-5-25 cm, loosely to densely tufted, sometimes solitary, usually much-branched below, prostrate, curved and ascending, or erect, few- to many-noded, internodes glabrous. Spikes (3)-7-10-(12) cm, curved or rarely straight, cylindric, rigid, green or purplish, rachis internodes ≤ spikelets, hollowed on one side, disarticulating horizontally below each spikelet at maturity. Spikelets 5-6.5 mm, embedded in cavities in rachis, solitary and alternating on opposite sides of rachis. Glumes ± equal and equalling spikelets, inserted side by side on rachis and appressed to it obscuring cavity, 4-5-nerved, rigid, much thickened, narrowly oblong-subulate, acute, hyaline margins minutely hairy. Lemma 3.5-4.5 mm, lanceolate, membranous, finely 3-nerved, lateral nerves short and very indistinct. Palea ≈ lemma. Lodicules c. 1 mm. Anthers 0.6-0.9 mm. Caryopsis 2.5-3 × 0.6-0.8 mm, enclosed between hardened glumes and segment of rachis. Fig. 7. Plate 4C.

N.: North and South Auckland, scattered further south; S.: Nelson, Marlborough, Canterbury to Banks Peninsula, Otago (near Dunedin, and inland at Conroys Gully). Usually coastal, on sand dunes, on shingle and rocks near water's edge, and in saline estuaries, mud flats, and reclamation areas.

Naturalised from Mediterranean.

Originally recorded for New Zealand as Lepturus incurvatus and also known as Lepturus incurvus and Pholiurus incurvus. Parapholis incurva resembles littoral species of Lepturus (Chlorideae) in which spikelets are also deeply embedded within fragile racemes, but the glumes in Lepturus are very unequal and only the upper glume covers the embedded spikelet, except in the topmost floret.

Fig. 7 Parapholis incurva S, spikelet on rachis segment, × 12; G 1, G 2, glumes, × 24; L, lemma ventral view, × 24; P, palea dorsal view, × 24; Lo, lodicules, × 30; O, ovary, styles and stigmas, × 30; St, stamens, × 30. © All rights reserved. [Image: 4X7Y]