Chionochloa flavicans f. temata

Detailed description

Tall, rather stout, often sprawling, flabellate tussock with persistent leaves and sheaths. Leaf-sheath to 150 mm, pinkish or purplish, chartaceous, entire, becoming fibrous, keeled, glabrous or with a few long hairs, apical tuft of hairs to 1 mm. Ligule to 0.7 mm. Leaf-blade to 750 × 8 mm, dark green, often distinctly glaucous, keeled, persistent, glabrous except for some short hairs above ligule and prickle-teeth on margins and abaxially at apex. Culm to 1.5 m, internodes glabrous. Inflorescence to 300 mm, clavate, dense and compact, not naked below; rachis smooth below, branches and pedicels densely scabrid and with some long hairs at branch axils. Spikelets of up to 4 distant florets. Glumes to 4 mm, broad, shallowly bifid, sometimes purpled, margins ciliate, prickle-teeth adaxially above, < nearest lemma lobes; lower 3-nerved, upper 5-nerved. Lemma to 4 mm, shorter and broader than typical form; hairs dense on margin, few aside central nerve, rarely reaching sinus, prickle-teeth above adaxially and abaxially on nerves; lateral lobes to 0.2 mm, conspicuously awned adjacent to a small lobe; central awn to 6 mm, reflexed, column absent. Palea to 4.5 mm, interkeel with a few short hairs. Callus to 1.5 mm, hairs to 4 mm. Rachilla to 0.25 mm. Lodicules to 1 mm. Anthers to 4 mm. Ovary to 1 mm; stigma-styles to 3 mm. Seeds to 3 mm.