Elymus rectisetus (Nees) Á.Löve & Connor
Open coarsely hairy grass with long drooping inflorescences of many straight-awned spikelets; branching usually intravaginal but often extravaginal. Leaf-sheath to 10 cm, hirsute with erect or retrorse hairs 0.5-0.75 mm. Ligule 0.1 mm, truncate. Collar recurved, glabrous except for 1-2 very long hairs especially near auricles. Auricles 0.5-1 mm, clasping, glabrous. Leaf-blade 18 cm × 1-4 mm, everywhere coarsely hirsute, occasionally rough with prickle-teeth. Culm to 1.5 m, decumbent below, drooping above at maturity, internodes usually smooth but occasionally rough, irregularly hairy below lower nodes. Inflorescence 10-20 cm, up to 10 spikelets, convex surfaces fairly scabrid. Spikelets 40-55 mm, of 5-10 florets often purple flecked. Glumes unequal, 4-10 mm, 3-5-nerved, irregularly long triangular, centrally keeled, margins membranous, ciliate at apex, becoming awned and sometimes scabrid above. Lemma smooth below becoming prickle-toothed above, keeled above continuing into very scabrid straight awn 30-50 mm. Palea 9-11 mm, apex truncate to retuse. Rachilla 1.5-2.5 mm, hairs becoming long at apex. Callus 0.75 mm, surrounded by hairs > callus. Lodicules 1-1.25 mm. Anthers 1.8-2.3 mm, yellow or purple streaked. Gynoecium: ovary 1.25 mm; stigma-styles to 2.5 mm. Caryopsis 6-6.5 mm; embryo 1-1.2 mm.
N.: throughout except unrecorded in the Waikato; S.: throughout except rare in Westland, absent from Fiordland and much of Southland. In poor pastures, waste places and roadsides; sea level to 1250 m; unacceptable to livestock.
Naturalised from Australia.
Hair, J. B., Heredity 10: 129-160 (1956) described, as unique in the tribe, pseudogamous apospory in E. rectisetus (as Agropyron scabrum). Recent extensions of this work are Crane, C. F. and Carman, J. G. Amer. J. Bot. 74: 477-496 (1987); Carman, J. G., Crane, C. F. and Rieva-Lizarazu, O. Crop Science 31: 1527-1532 (1991); Peel, M. D. et al. Crop Science 37: 717-723 (1997).
The type specimen of Festuca scabra Labill. (1805) non Vahl ≡Triticum scabrum R.Br. (1810) ≡Agropyron scabrum (R.Br.) P.Beauv. (1812) ≡Anthosachne scabra (R.Br.) Nevski (1934) ≡Elymus scaber (R.Br.) Á.Löve (1984) ≡Roegneria scabra (R.Br.) J.L.Yang et C.Yen (1991) is at Florence (FI!). The awned lemmas are shorter than in E. rectisetus, c. 25 mm, and the awn:lemma ratio is c. 2. The palea apex is described by Labillardière [Nov. Holl. Pl. 1: 26 (1805)] as emarginate. For an account of this and other Australian taxa see Murphy, M. A. and Jones, C .E. Aust. Syst. Bot. 12: 593-604 (1999).
