Flora of New Zealand Series

windmill grass

Light green, wiry, stoloniferous perennials to 50 cm; widely spreading racemes of inflorescence conspicuous at maturity. Leaf-sheath keeled, chartaceous, light green to light brown. Ligule 0.2-0.4 mm, minutely ciliate. Collar glabrous, sometimes with minute (0.1-0.5 mm) hairs, rarely with a few long (1-5 mm) hairs. Leaf-blade 6.5-12 cm × 2-2.5 mm, folded, linear, ± scabrid near base, adaxially rarely with sparse long (0.8-5 mm) hairs; margins finely scabrid, tip curved. Culm 20-40 cm, unbranched. Racemes 4-11, spike-like, digitate, 10-17 cm × 2.5-3.5 mm, bunched together and ± erect at first, later spreading, lowest racemes almost horizontal; rachis slender, pubescent near base, minutely scabrid above, bearing close-set, shortly pedicelled, light greenish spikelets maturing dark brown, almost black. Glumes unequal, hyaline, 1-nerved, narrow-lanceolate, acute, smooth, midnerve sparsely scabrid; lower 1.2-1.9 mm, upper 3-3.8 mm, deeper purple, margins scabrid near apex. Spikelets 2-3-flowered. Basal ⚥ floret: lemma 2.7-3.6 mm, 3-nerved, sparsely, minutely scabrid, lateral nerves with short stiff hairs, callus hairs long, stiff, apex notched, bilobed, awn from notch 6.5-14 mm, slender, straight, scabrid, purple; palea 2.2-2.8 mm, narrow, entire, keels ciliate; anthers 0.5-0.8 mm, purple; gynoecium with ovary 0.4-0.5 mm, stigma-styles 1.2-1.5 mm; caryopsis 1.5-1.9 × 0.3-0.5 mm. Median floret: lemma 1.5-2.5 mm, 3-(5)-nerved, glabrous, truncate, awn c. 12 mm; palea shorter and much narrower; anthers when present, 0.5 mm, polliniferous. Apical Ø floret when present: lemma c. 1 mm, 3-nerved, truncate, always barren, awn 2.5-3.5 mm; rachilla glabrous, 0.5-0.8 mm.

N.: North Auckland (Waitangi), Hawkes Bay (Napier, Hastings); S.: Nelson (Rabbit Id, Richmond), Canterbury (Sumner, near Christchurch); Three Kings Is. Coastal, waste land, stony or sandy ground.

Naturalised from Australia.

Two Australian species, C. acicularis Lindl., curly windmill grass, and C. pectinata Benth., comb chloris, have been recorded as seed impurities in imported commercial seed but are unknown in the wild in N.Z. [Healy, A. J. Standard Common Names for Weeds in N.Z. ed. 2, 141 (1984)].