Hairy Spinifex

Description

A stout, dioecious, perennial grass, up to 30 cm tall, with strong, creeping stolons which root at the nodes. Plants are vegetatively similar, some male, some female or bisexual. The male inflorescence is a terminal cluster of stalked racemes, each cluster subtended by large, partly enclosing, silky-hairy bracts. The female or bisexual inflorescence is a large, globose, spiny head of numerous sessile racemes, each of which is reduced to a single spikelet, which is enclosed by a large, silky-hairy bract, the axis extending beyond the spikelet into a long, stout bristle, 10 cm or more in length (Tothill & Hacker, 1973).