Trisetum drucei

Features

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 x 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 x 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 3/4 of length of upper, narrow oblong to narrow ovate, upper glume 3/4 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 1/4 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 x 0.7-0.8 mm.