Citation: Benth., Fl. Aust. 7:648 (1878).

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: Woollybutt, naked woollybutt, neverfail.

Description:
Perennial 22-60 cm high, with a thickened or bulbous, hirsute or woolly base and often a knotty woolly rhizome; culms usually simple, glabrous or the lower internodes woolly, often scabrous, wiry, 3-8-noded; nodes sometimes pilose or pubescent; leaves mostly glabrous or the lower ones hairy or woolly, scabrous or smooth; sheaths ciliate on both margins; blades tightly convolute or involute, often stiffly setaceous and c. 1 cm long.

Panicle 9-20 x 1-7.5 cm, contracted and loose or spike-like and interrupted, often simple or racemose, the branches and spikelets erect or horizontal or reflexed on the axis; primary branches 1.5-3 (rarely to 6.5) cm long, simple; spikelets 5-30 x 1.5-3.5 mm, closely 8-62-flowered, linear-oblong, strongly curved or straight; rhachilla persistent or ultimately disarticulating, internodes 0.6-0.7 mm long; glumes ovate, obtuse, 1-3-nerved, granular or smooth, scabrous or smooth on the keel, 1.1-2.5 mm long; lemmas 2-3 mm long, membranous or with narrow hyaline margins, ovate, obtuse, sometimes mucronate, scabrous-papillose near the apex or smooth or granular, usually scaberulous upwards on the keel; lateral nerves about midway between the margin and the mid-nerve, often thickened; palea obovate, obtuse to truncate, pouched between the keels, sometimes granular especially near the keels, keels closely scaberulous, sometimes the hairs longer downwards.

Grain laterally compressed or trigonous, oblong, flattened or slightly concave on the back.

Published illustration: Lazarides (1970) The grasses of Central Australia, pl. 39; Cunningham et al. (1982) Plants of western New South Wales. p. 100.

Distribution:  S.Aust.: NW, LE, NU, GT, FR, EA, EP.   All mainland States except Vic. Conservation status: native Flowering time: recorded in S.Aust. in Aug. and April.

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

Biology: Moderately palatable.

Author: Not yet available