Common Name: Hedgehog grasses
Description: Tufted or rhizomatous perennials.
Leaves with ligule short, membranous; blade flat, usually short, scabrous.
Inflorescence a dense spike-like panicle, bristly, ovoid to oblong-cylindrical.
Spikelets 2.5–10 mm long, very shortly pedicellate, disarticulating above the glumes; 1 bisexual floret, rachilla shortly produced beyond the floret. Glumes equal, firm, acute to subulate, 1-nerved with stiff hairs or bristles along the keel and ciliate on the margins. Lemmas 5–11-nerved, the apex acute with 2 slender, erect lobes (occasionally lemma apex entire) and a straight awn arising between or behind them; awn scabrous; callus hairy. Palea 2-nerved, minutely 3-lobed, ciliolate at the apex and along the margins.
Distribution and occurrence: World: c. 7 species, Australia & New Zealand. Australia: 7 species (native) all States except N.T.
Key from Wheeler et al. (1990).
Text by S. W. L. Jacobs & S. M. Hastings
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Awns absent or not conspicuous, 3 mm or less in length | 2 |
| Awns conspicuous, more than 3 mm long | 3 |
| 2 | Panicle bristly; spikelets 2–3.5 mm long, awn on lemma to 3 mm long | Echinopogon mckiei |
| Panicle not bristly; spikelets 3.5–4 mm long; lemma with a mucro to 1.5 mm long
Back to 1 | Echinopogon phleoides |
| 3 | Spikelets to 5 mm long; lemma lobes less than 1.5 mm long or absent; glumes acute | 4 |
| Spikelets 5–10 mm long; lemma with aristulate lobes to 2.5 mm long; glumes acute to subulate
Back to 1 | 5 |
| 4 | Plants rhizomatous with culms loosely clustered or solitary, usually geniculate at the base; leaves with blade linear-lanceolate or linear, 2–8 mm wide, panicle dense | Echinopogon ovatus |
| Plants tufted; culms erect, usually not geniculate; leaves with blade linear, 1–5.5 mm wide; panicle dense or interrupted
Back to 3 | Echinopogon caespitosus |
| 5 | Panicle stiffly erect; peduncle retrorsely scabrous | Echinopogon intermedius |
| Panicle often nodding or at an angle; peduncle smooth (or very slightly scabrous) below the panicle
Back to 3 | 6 |
| 6 | Spikelets usually more than 7 mm long; glumes often with loose, long hairs as well as rigid bristles on the keels; lemma usually shorter than the glumes | Echinopogon cheelii |
| Spikelets 5–7(-8) mm long; glumes with bristles only on the keels; lemma about the same length as the glumes
Back to 5 | Echinopogon nutans |
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