Perennial Veldt-grass - introduced (*Ehrhartia calycina)

Native to South Africa. Perennial.

Family. Poaceae (Grass family).

Uncommon weed with a record for Mt Alexander.

Identification

• the flower cluster is a slender spray
• the glumes about as long as the lemma bodies
• the spikelets have 2 sterile lemmas below a fertile lemma; the three fall as a unit when ripe
• the fertile lemma is shortly awned
• the two sterile (lower) spiklets have conspicuous fine silky hairs
• the leaves are flat
• the ligule is 2-3mm long, truncate, and fringed.

It is a major environmental weed in western Victoria where it can dominate the bushland ground flora.

Ehrhartia: After F. Ehrhart, an 18th century Swiss botanist; calycina: in the form of a calyx, perhaps referring to the cosnpicuous reddish glumes.

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