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

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: Hairy-flowered woollybutt.

Description:
Perennial 21-75 cm high, usually with a thickened woolly base and knotty woolly often branched rhizome; culms simple, glabrous or sometimes hirsute, hispid on at least the lower internodes, wiry, 5-10-noded; leaves glabrous or sometimes hirsute, scabrous; sheaths ciliate on the outer or both margins, glabrous or the lower ones woolly; blades convolute or involute, or sometimes flat and up to 3 mm wide, somewhat setaceous, scabrous on the upper surface and sometimes hispid on the lower.

Panicle 8-15.5 x 2-5 cm, contracted, loose; primary branches to 5 cm long, simple or sparsely divided, spikelet-bearing from near the base; spikelets 6-25 (rarely to 37) x 1.8-3 mm, closely 9-40 (rarely to 62)-flowered, linear-oblong or elliptic, straight or sometimes curved; rhachilla persistent, straight or weakly flexuose, usually obscured by the hairs of the lemma and the palea, internodes c. 0.5 mm long; glumes ovate, obtuse or acute, usually scaberulous, 1.5-2.3 mm long, sometimes 2-nerved, the lower caducous and usually glabrous, the upper usually hairy on the margins near the base; lemmas 2-3 mm long, membranous with broad hyaline margins, ovate, obtuse, hairy near the base on the margins or submargins, usually scaberulous or granular upwards; lateral nerves often green; paleas deciduous, broadly elliptic or obovate, obtuse, often pouched between the keels, sometimes hairy at the base or glabrous; keels near the base hairy like the lemma, ciliolate upwards.

Grain turgid or slightly compressed laterally, broadly ovate.

Published illustration: Lazarides (1970) The grasses of Central Australia, pl. 41a.

Distribution:  S.Aust.: NW, LE, NU, GT, FR, EA, EP, MU.   W.Aust.; N.T.; Qld; N.S.W. Conservation status: native Flowering time: Feb. — June.

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