| Notes:
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Graminoid; Notes: Tall, tufted, perennial grass, up to 1.5 m high when in flower. Culms reed-like, hollow, sturdy, rigid, erect, terete, basally up to 8 - 10 mm in diameter, smooth, yellow-green to straw-coloured, nodes dark-banded, glabrous, not conspicuously gibbose, enveloped over entire length. Leaf blade lanceolate, up to 30 cm long but mostly shorter, expanded, coriaceous, fairly rigid, smooth, blue-green, glaucous, glabrous, deeply canaliculate, tapering, gradually to fine tip usually withering, broadest in middle - up to 1.5 cm, base narrowed auriculate with collar membranous, brown-black, densely pubescent. Ligule a membranous ridge bearing a fringe of short, cream-coloured hairs, long, white, curly hairs of collar extended down upper sheath margin. Leaf sheath tightly circumculmate, imbricate from upper region, deeply canaliculate, glabrous, usually straw-coloured. Inflorescence a relatively dense panicle, 40 - 50 x 6 - 8 cm, ovate in broad outline, borne on rigid peduncle. Secondary axis alternate, clustered, dense whorl of long white hairs at point of junction, up to 15 cm long delicate, acutely ascending, never spreading. Spikelets narrowly ovoid to slightly lanceolate, 15 x 1 mm, often paired, erect. Lower glume 1/3 of spikelet, membranous, hyaline to straw-coloured but mostly dark purple, glabrous, Awn rigid, straight, sharp tipped, extending up to 6 mm beyond spikelet. |