Coast Blown-grass

Status:

Native to southern Australia and New Zealand.

Plant Description:

Large tussocks, erect, hairless perennial grass, 25-75 cm tall with, smooth, rather stiff, dark to blue-green, flat leaves to 40 cm long and 3-7 mm wide; ligule membranous, obtuse, 3-12 mm long.

Inflorescence, a purplish-green to purple, erect, rather stiff, open and broad panicle to 30 cm long, becoming exserted from the leaf sheath with maturity.

Spikelets small (4-6.5 mm long), generally purple or reddish-purple, on short fine stalks. Each spikelet with a single, smooth hairless, floret with a fine, sharply bent awn or bristle attached to its mid-back region and readily visible beyond the end of the spikelet.

Habitat:

Scattered along the Victorian coastline in slight to moderately saline wet marshes, on exposed cliffs and rocky foreshores and on secondary and tertiary dunes. Also, on saline flats and around salt lakes in Western Victoria to the Wimmera but nowhere common.

Comments:

Similar appearance to Common Blown-grass.

A simplified key to some of the species on salt-land can be accessed here - Blown-grass species key