Koeleria drucei

Detailed description

Dense, tufted grass up to 600 mm with culms usually overtopping the dense, finely scabrid leaves; branching intravaginal. Leaf-sheath 20–80 mm, firmly membranous, grey-brown to light greenish brown, sometimes reddish, very densely minutely papillose or minutely scabrid to pubescent, rarely glabrous. Ligule 0.8–1 mm, truncate, erose, sparsely finely ciliate. Collar sometimes with a few stiff hairs up to 1.5 mm. Leaf-blade 30–300 × 0.5–4 mm, dull green, glaucous or reddish, folded with inrolled margins or flat, firmly coriaceous, abaxially scabrid with dense prickle teeth, or smooth, or sparsely scabrid above, adaxially ribbed with minute prickle-teeth or densely pubescent on ribs; margins scabrid. Culm 100–400 mm, internodes glabrous or finely pubescent above, sometimes pilose, or minutely prickle-toothed below panicle. Panicle 50–200 × 10–30 mm, lanceolate, with short branches, more or less interrupted, not very dense, sometimes quite open; spikelets clustered and individual inconspicuous; rachis, branches and pedicels densely but minutely strigose or puberulous. Spikelets 6–8 mm, light green (often tinged reddish brown). Glumes unequal, membranous, keels with minute prickle-teeth in upper half; lower glume ¾ length of upper, narrow oblong to narrow ovate, upper glume ¾ to almost equal the length of the spikelet, elliptic oblong; margins broadly hyaline, sparsely prickle-toothed near the acute, acuminate or rarely mucronate apex. Lemma 3.5–6 mm, bidentate or bicuspid, papillose, minutely prickle-toothed near midnerve; awn 3.5–7.5 mm, recurved, insertion in upper ¼ of lemma. Palea minutely prickle-toothed on keels and on margins near apex. Callus hairs up to 1 mm. Rachilla hairs up to 2 mm. Lodicules 0.8–1.2 mm, glabrous. Anthers 0.8–2 mm. Ovary 0.8 mm; stigma styles 1.2 mm. Seed 2.5-3 × 0.7–0.8 mm.