[Microlaena stipoides (Labill.) R. Br.] (nat) Meadow ricegrass Slender rhizomatous perennials; culms ascending or erect, usually decumbent at base, 30-75 cm tall, glabrous. Sheaths 2-6 cm long, shorter than internodes, glabrous or retrorsely scabrous; ligule membranous, 0.2-0.5 mm long, margins erose; blades flat, 3—8(—14) cm long, 2-3 mm wide, glabrous or scaberulous, margins scabrous. Inflorescences paniculate, suberect to nodding, (4-)10-19 cm long, narrow, usually unbranched; spikelets widely spaced, paired or solitary, chasmogamous or cleis- togamous, appressed along the slender axis, each one ca. 10 mm long (excluding awns), pedicels 1-2 mm long, rachilla somewhat elongate above glumes and between sterile lemmas; glumes membranous, nerveless, first glume 0.2-0.5 mm long, apex acute, second glume 0.5-0.7 mm long, apex acute or bifid; sterile lemma similar to glumes, coriaceous, obscurely 5-nerved, the nerves scaberulous, margins membranous, apex with a scabrous awn 8-12 mm long, callus conspicuous, appressed silky pilose, the hairs ca. 1 mm long; fertile lemma 5-6 mm long, enclosed within margins of uppermost sterile lemma, obscurely 7-nerved, somewhat keeled, scabrous on upper part of keel, apex apiculate; palea membranous, narrow, linear, shorter than lemma, 1- nerved, keeled, the keel sparsely ciliate, margins hyaline. Caryopsis yellow, narrow, somewhat compressed, 5-6 mm long. [2n = 40.] Native to Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines; in Hawaii naturalized in openings in wet forest, and other moist, shaded sites, 20-1,400 m, on 0‘ahu, Maui, and Hawai‘i. First collected on Hawai‘i in 1916 (Hitchcock 14465, BISH).—Plate 226.
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