Flora of New Zealand Series

beard grass

Annual tufts, very variable in size, 5-70-(100) cm. Leaf-sheath chartaceous, striate, smooth or scabrid above, green to light brown; uppermost sheath ± inflated. Ligule 1.5-10-(18) mm, oblong, tapered, ciliate-lacerate, abaxially scabrid. Leaf-blade 1-28 cm × 1-10 mm, linear-lanceolate, finely striate, scabrid, tip acute. Culm 3-60 cm, in tufts or solitary, erect, or geniculate and sometimes rooting at lower nodes, usually branched near base, internodes smooth or occasionally scabrid near panicle. Panicle 0.7-17 × 0.5-4 cm, very dense, cylindric or lobed, bearing numerous fine bristles; rachis smooth to scabrid, branches very short, closely scabrid, pedicels scabrid, very short, disarticulating. Spikelets 4-12 mm, oblong, silvery or yellowish green, rarely purple-tinged, falling entire at maturity with a minute piece of pedicel. Glumes equalling spikelet, scabrid, with longer prickle-teeth in lower ½, margins finely ciliate, apex emarginate, with very fine, straight terminal scabrid awn (3-9 mm) from the short notch. Lemma 1-1.5 mm, hyaline, glabrous, elliptic, truncate and minutely denticulate, awnless or with extremely fine, terminal awn (0.8-1.8 mm). Palea slightly shorter and narrower than lemma, keels slightly excurrent. Anthers 0.4-0.7 mm. Caryopsis 1-1.3 × 0.4-0.6 mm.

N.: throughout, but rare in Taranaki; S.: Nelson, Westland (Hokitika), on eastern coast and inland in Central Otago; K.: Macauley Id; Three Kings Is. Usually coastal, on mud flats, salt marsh, lagoon or swamp margins, damp sand flats and sand dunes, roadsides, waste ground, coastal rocks and cliff edges; inland in Central Otago in moist ground along ditches or creeks or on river terraces.

Naturalised.

Indigenous to Europe, North Africa and Asia; now naturalised in most warm temperate regions.