Microlaena carsei

Detailed description

Shortly creeping, rhizomatous, tufted, narrowly-leaved perennial grass. Rhizomes short, branching extravaginal, cataphylls 10-20 mm, bases swollen, glossy, keeled, acute. Internodes elongated, slender, glossy, glabrous, distinctly straminaceous, apel to dark brown. Leaf-sheath glabrous, keel stout, margin membranous. Ligule 0.75-1 mm, triangular. Auricles 2, marginal hairs 1.5–2.5 mm. Leaf-blade 80–250 × 4–8 mm, glaucous green to green, keel stout; margins sharp, prickle-edged. Culm up to 600 mm laterally compressed, internodes longitudinally grooved, glabrous. Panicle 200–300 mm, narrow, slender, nodes close-set, branches appressed, erect, filiform, nodes shortly branched with numerous close-set spikelets, often with longer, naked branches below; rachis longitudinally grooved, rachis, branches and pedicles finely prickled. Spikelets 15–23 mm, numerous, solitary, on short or long pedicels. Glumes unequal, covering base of spikelet, margins ciliate; lower 0.2–0.6 mm, 1-nerved, < callus hairs, upper 0.75–1.7 mm, 3-nerved, triangular acute or irregularly lobed to erose, > callus hairs. Lower sterile lemma 5–16 mm, 3–5-nerved, keel prickled edged and also above, otherwise smooth, undersides hairy, awn ½ lemma length, sometimes less than or equal lemma bearing perfect flowers, callus hairs 0.5 mm; upper sterile lemma 14–25 mm, 3–5-nerved, densely prickled-toothed on keels and above, smooth elsewhere, undersides hairy, awn ½ lemma length; callus hairs 1.5 mm, lemma bearing perfect flowers 5–10 mm, 3–5-nerved, awn 0–0.5 mm set between minute lobes, margins ciliate above, apex deeply bifid (0.4–0.8 mm), ciliate. Stamens 2; anthers 1–2.2 mm, yellow. Ovary 0.65–75 mm; stigma-styles 1–2.2. mm, nude below. Seed 3–4 mm.