Poa anceps

Detailed description

Very variable, coarse, light green, greenish brown to bluish green perennial tufted grass to 1 m, with stiff erect leaves < stems, or often scrambling and trailing to 2 m, with hanging leaves and stems drooping from thick stolons, rooting at nodes below tufts; branching extravaginal, with up to three, short, glabrous, obtuse, bract-like sheaths at base; leaf-blades persistent. Leaf-sheath light green to light brown, coriaceous, folded and strongly keeled, lateral ribs conspicuous, smooth or slightly scabrid above, rarely minutely scabrid throughout. Ligule 0.5 mm, a truncate usually long-ciliate rim, scabrid abaxially. Leaf-blade coriaceous, folded–flat, 100–400 × 1.0–6.5 mm, abaxially with prominent, thickened midrib, and numerous, distinct lateral ribs, smooth apart from prickle-teeth near tip; upper surface smooth, or scabrid on ribs, rarely papillose-scabrid, occasionally with fringe of stiff short hairs above ligule; margins smooth or scabrid, thickened, tip acuminate or abruptly acute, often pungent, scabrid. Culm 150–700 mm, often not far exserted beyond uppermost leaf-sheath, internodes glabrous. Panicle 100–280 mm, usually open with numerous spreading branches, sometimes contracted, branches whorled, very slender; rachis and primary branches often smooth, secondary branchlets finely, sharply, densely or sparsely scabrid or smooth, often spikelet-bearing ± throughout. Spikelets numerous, 3.0–7.5 mm, 2–8-flowered light green. Glumes subequal, narrow- to elliptic-lanceolate, acute to subobtuse, occasionally smooth throughout, or upper ⅔ scabrid; lower slightly shorter, lower glume 2.0–4.5 mm, 3-nerved, upper 2.5–5.0 mm, 3-nerved. Lemma 3.0–4.5 mm, 5–7-nerved, elliptic-oblong, acute to subobtuse, internerves finely scaberulous throughout, occasionally only minutely papillose, bearing short crinkled hairs on lower ½ of midnerve and near base of outer lateral nerves; margins minutely scabrid. Palea 2.5–4.0 mm, keels finely scabrid, interkeel and flanks smooth or minutely scabrid. Callus with thick tuft of soft crinkled hairs. Rachilla c. 0.5 mm, smooth or minutely, sparsely scabrid; prolongation c. twice as long. Lodicules c. 0.5 mm, occasionally hair-tipped. Anthers 1.5–2.5 mm. Seed c. 2.0 × 0.5 mm.