Catapodium rigidum (L.) C.E.Hubb.
hard grass
Annual, erect or spreading, rigid tufts, from narrow base, 5-40 cm; branching intravaginal. Leaf-sheath glabrous, ribbed; margins wide, hyaline. Ligule 1.5-3.8 mm, glabrous, truncate, erose. Leaf-blade (0.5)-4-17 cm × 0.6-2.4 mm, flat, finely ribbed and often scabrid on ribs; margins minutely scabrid, narrowed to long, acute tip. Culm (2)-5.5-25 cm, erect, or geniculate at base, internodes glabrous. Panicle (2.3)-4-11 cm, linear-lanceolate to ovate, secund, often rather narrow, sometimes more open, rigid, shortly branched; branches and pedicels angled, scabrid on angles. Spikelets 3.5-10 mm, 4-9-flowered, greenish or sometimes purplish. Glumes subequal, lanceolate, acute, almost hyaline but midnerve prominent, scabrid; lower 1.2-2 mm, 1-3-nerved, upper 1.5-2.5 mm, 3-nerved. Lemma 1.8-2.6 mm, faintly 5-nerved, rounded, obtuse, coriaceous with narrow membranous margins. Palea ≈ lemma, keels minutely scabrid. Anthers 0.4-0.5 mm. Caryopsis 1.5-2 × 0.4-0.6 mm.
N.; S.: usually coastal, scattered in the east, rare in the west. On sandy and gravelly beaches, on limestone, in depleted pasture, tracksides and gardens and in shingle ballast; usually lowland, occasionally montane.
Naturalised.
Indigenous to western and southern Europe, northern Africa and western Asia, now naturalised in temperate regions of both Hemispheres.
