Description: Tufted or scrambling perennials, with branched, erect or spreading culms.
Leaves with ligule a rim of dense, short hairs; blade glabrous, slightly rough on the upper surface, strongly veined, disarticulating from the sheath.
Inflorescence a panicle with few branches, or a single raceme occasionally with secondary branching.
Spikelets sessile, dorsally compressed, falling entire, few in each raceme; florets 2, the lower sterile, the upper bisexual. Glumes unequal, the lower abaxial, to half the length of the spikelet, triangular, hairless, or absent; the upper equalling the spikelet, 7–11-nerved, covered on the back with hooked or curved, tubercle-based spines or hairs. Lemmas 2, the lower similar to the upper glume, the upper smooth, tough, rounded, shorter than the lower lemma, 7-nerved. Palea 1, shorter than the lemma, similar in texture, partly enclosed by it.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 3 species, Australia & Philipp. Australia: 2 species (native), Qld, N.S.W.
Text by S. W. L. Jacobs & C. A. Wall
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Spikelets 4.3–5 mm long; lower glume 1–2.5 mm long; upper glume and lower lemma with rigid, hooked spines; upper lemma acute | Ancistrachne uncinulata |
| Spikelets 2.5–3 mm long; lower glume less than 0.25 mm long or absent; upper glume and lower lemma with fine, curved hairs; upper lemma mucronate | Ancistrachne maidenii |
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