Sporobolus africanus (Poir.) Robyns & Tournay
ratstail
Stiff, perennial tufts, 20-80 cm, with convolute or flat leaves overtopped by narrow, olive-green spiciform panicles; branching intravaginal. Leaf-sheath very light green to creamy brown, subcoriaceous or somewhat chartaceous, glabrous, margins often short-ciliate below ligule. Ligule 0.2-0.5 mm. Collar hairs to 1 mm. Leaf-blade 10-25 cm × 0.8-2 mm diam., inrolled, or flat and up to 5 mm wide, abaxially glabrous, adaxially scabrid on ribs; margins finely scabrid, long-tapered to fine tip. Culm 15-50 cm, internodes glabrous. Panicle 8.5-22 cm × 4-8 mm, ± continuous but with some ± distant, appressed branches, up to 2 cm, near base; rachis ± smooth, branches sparsely scabrid, bearing densely crowded spikelets. Spikelets 2.2-3 mm, leaden green. Glumes unequal, < lemma; lower 0.7-1 mm, nerveless, elliptic, obtuse, upper 1.4-1.7 mm, 1-nerved, lanceolate, subacute. Lemma = spikelet, faintly 3-nerved, ovate-elliptic, acute. Palea ≤ lemma, apex narrowly truncate. Stamens 3; anthers 0.7-1.2 mm, often purplish. Caryopsis 1-1.3 × 0.6-0.7 mm, ellipsoid, truncate.
N.: common in North Auckland, Auckland City, and Rotorua, scattered further south; S.: Nelson, Marlborough, Canterbury (Banks Peninsula); K. Coastal in pasture, and in grassland on sunny hill slopes, and on cliffs, also in scrub, waste land and on roadsides.
Naturalised from Africa.
Sometimes treated as S. indicus var. capensis (P.Beauv.) Engl. but Simon, B. K. and Jacobs. S. W. L. Aust. Syst. Bot. 12: 375-448 (1999) note that S. africanus is distinct from S. indicus in its narrow denser inflorescence and larger spikelets, and also by the method in which the mature caryopsis is held in the floret.
