Purple Needlegrass

Description

Caespitose annuals or perennials to c. 80 cm tall. Culms erect, slender, ribbed, scabrous; nodes 2-4, constricted, glabrous, purplish. Cataphylls to 1 cm long, sometimes the bases pilose with hairs 1-2 mm long; sheath becoming loose with age, shorter than internode, ribbed, glabrous; ligule a ciliate rim with hairs 0.5-1 mm long, each end with several rigid hairs c. 3 mm long; blade 4-25 cm long, ribbed, glabrous. Inflorescence paniculate, compact, oblong, 6-30 cm long, 1.5-3 cm wide, soft, purple, straw-coloured when mature. Spikelets of 3-9 florets. Glumes narrowly elliptic, unequal, 1-keeled, glabrous, keel and margin scabrous; lower glume 3-4 mm long, mucronate; upper glume 4-5 mm long, 2-toothed around the pointed extension of the nerve. Lemmas narrow, 3-5 mm long, 1-keeled, 3-nerved, nerves pubescent with rigid hairs to 2 mm long, 3-lobed, the lobes c. 1 mm long; central nerve extending to become awn, straight, 5-7 mm long; lateral awns arising from the margins, straight 6-7 mm long; callus c. 0.5 mm long, pubescent with hairs c. 0.25 cm long; palea linear, c. 3 mm long, 2-nerved, membranous.