Poa foliosa

Detailed description

Dioecious, robust, green tussocks up to 1.5 m tall, arising from short, narrow, woody stolons, with shoots covered at base by abundant fibrous remnants of sheaths. Branching extravaginal; leaf-blades persistent. Leaf-sheath light brown, coriaceous, glabrous, closely striate, keel prominent above. Ligule 1–3 mm, apically glabrous, entire, rounded, abaxially finely scabrid. Leaf-blade 150–500 × 1–6 mm, coriaceous, tough, flat, abaxially smooth with prominent midrib and many lateral ribs, adaxially short-scabrid, bearing two prominent ridges along centre; margins thickened, smooth, tip entire, smooth, semi-pungent. Culm 200–600 mm, internodes glabrous. Panicle 100–250 mm, dense, with all branches, except the longer ones, bearing spikelets almost to base; rachis and branches mostly smooth. Spikelets 5.5–9.0 mm, 3–6-flowered, light greenish brown. Glumes subequal, long-acuminate, membranous, except for thickened nerves, smooth, but with a few prickle-teeth on nerves above and occasionally on margins; lower 3–6 mm, 1–3-nerved, narrow-lanceolate, upper 4.0–6.5 mm, 3-nerved, narrow elliptic-lanceolate. Lemma 5–7 mm, 5-nerved, acute or with midnerve very shortly excurrent, scabrid except near base, midnerve ciliate to more than halfway, outer lateral nerves, internerves, and margins with minute hairs in lower ⅓. Palea 3.5–4.5 mm, keel rather densely ciliate-scabrid, interkeel and flanks with sparse minute hairs and prickle-teeth. Callus with large tuft of crinkled hairs just below midnerve of lemma. Rachilla c. 0.5 mm, glabrous. Lodicules 0.4–0.7 mm, rarely hair-tipped. Dioecious: male with anthers 2.0–3.3 mm, gynoecium 0; female with pollen-sterile anthers c. 0.6–1.0 mm, often on long filaments; stigma-styles c. 2 mm. Seed 2 mm; rarely perfect.