Citation: C.E. Hubb., Kew Bull. 1934:450 (1934).

Synonymy: Pappophorum avenaceum Lindley in T.L. Mitchell, J. Exped. Trop. Austral. 320 (1848).

Common name: Common bottle-washers.

Description:
Annual or short-lived perennial 25-40 (rarely 7-45) cm; culms simple or sparsely branched, pubescent to hirsute with simple hairs; leaves pubescent and pilose with simple and glandular hairs.

Panicle 3-9 x 1-3 cm (including the awns), loosely contracted, ovate to lanceolate; axillary inflorescences and spikelets absent; spikelet 3-5-flowered, with 2, 3 or rarely 4 florets fertile; glumes membranous, lanceolate to broadly ovate, obtuse to acuminate or acute, usually entire, glabrous or pilose; lower 4-7 (rarely to 12) mm long, 11-17- rarely 23-nerved; upper 4.7-9 (rarely to 13.6) mm long, 8-19-nerved; lowest lemma: body 2-3.5 mm long, hardened, with glabrous hyaline wings or auricles on the margins, smooth, bearded with hairs distinctly longer than the body itself; awns 7-8 (rarely 3.8-15.4) mm long, the mid-awn and 2 peripheral awns wider at their base than the remainder; palea of the lowest floret distinctly longer than its lemma (body), hairy or more often almost glabrous between the keels; flaps hairy; keels long-ciliate in the upper two-thirds to three-quarters; grain 1.3-1.5 x 1-1.3 mm, globoid to broadly ellipsoid, strongly compressed; upper lemmas hairy or sometimes glabrous.

Published illustration: Lazarides (1970) The grasses of Central Australia, pl. 33a; Cunningham et al. (1982) Plants of western New South Wales, p. 93.

Distribution:  S.Aust.: NW, LE, NU, GT, FR, EA, EP, MU, SL.   All mainland States except Vic. Conservation status: native Flowering time: throughout the year.

SA Distribution Map based on current data relating to specimens held in the State Herbarium of South Australia

Biology: Regarded as a valuable grazing species, especially owing to its ready regeneration after rain at all times of the year.

Author: Not yet available