NEW SOUTH WALES FLORA ONLINE

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Description: Rhizome short; shoots loosely tufted. Culms erect to spreading, ± trigonous, scabrous at least near apex, 25–90 cm long, c. 2.5 mm diam.

Leaves shorter than to equalling culms; blade 4–8 mm wide; sheath pale grey-brown; ligule obtuse.

Inflorescence erect, narrow, 3–12 cm long, compound, with numerous short spikes solitary at nodes or on appressed, spike-like secondary branches to c. 1 cm long; lowest involucral bract very short. Spikes sessile, contiguous, appressed to erect at maturity, c. 0.5 cm long; all spikes androgynous. Glumes obtuse to truncate, erose, shortly mucronate, whitish with green midrib; female glumes 1.5–2.5 mm long. Perigynia (utricles) ellipsoid, slightly winged or ribbed on upper margins, strongly several-nerved, 1.8–3 mm long, c. 1.5 mm diam., slightly hispid on shoulders and beak, green to blackish; short beak c. 0.3 mm long, with apex notched. Anthers 1.2–1.8 mm long excluding appendage to 0.1 mm long. Style 2-fid.

Nut obovoid to ellipsoid, lenticular in cross section, pale yellow-brown.

Herbarium Sheet

Herbarium Sheet

Flowering: spring–summer.

Distribution and occurrence: Scattered on tablelands, extending to SC ranges and the ranges of the Western Slopes.

Grows in open slopes in grassy woodland and forest.
NSW subdivisions: NC, SC, NT, CT, ST, NWS, CWS, SWS
Other Australian states: Vic.

AVH map***

Leaves are often prominently septate-nodulose as in the related C. appressa. Occurs in drier habitats than that species, from which it differs in the loosely tufted habit, the usually shorter inflorescence, the utricle not thickened at the base, and the leaves with denser, retrorse marginal prickles (except near the apex, where the prickles may be erect or antrorse; the prickles are regularly antrorse in C. appressa).