Redleg Grass - native (Bothriochloa macra)

Native. Perennial. C4.

Family. Poaceae (Grass family).

Uncommon.

Identification:

• flowers are on several (2-6) terminal, almost vertical, radiating arms
• the arms have stalkless and stalked spikelets
• the stems are usually reddish (hence "Redleg")
• the glumes are longer than the lemmas
• the spikelets have 2 lemmas, the first sterile, the second fertile
• the leaves are usually flat
• the ligules are membranous, 1-2.5mm long, and minutely hairy at the top
• there is a conspicuous sunken pit on the lower lemmas.

It can be hard to determine the make up of the floral parts. The spikelets occur in twos or threes. The upper spikelets are stalked and the spikelet is reduced to a single glume. The lower stalkless spikelet is 5-7mm long (excluding the awn), has a tuft of silky hairs at the base, and is awned with the awn about as long as the lemma.

Queensland Blue-grass (Dichanthium sericeum) is similar in appearance to Red-leg Grass. Red-leg Grass has a conspicuous sunken pit on the lower lemmas, and the nodes (of the stems) are hairless or almost so (any hairs are less than 1mm), and the stems are usually reddish. The nodes of Queensland Blue-grass are densely hairy (2mm long), the glumes are not pitted and the stems are not reddish.

Bothrion: a small pit; chloe: a grass, referring to the pit in the lower glumes; macer: lean, meagre, referring to the thin leaves.

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