Description: Tufted perennials with scaly, woolly cataphylls at their bases; culms branched.
Ligule a zone of dense hairs; blade rolled in bud, flat, lower surface usually with tubercle-based hairs, collar constricted.
Inflorescence a spike-like raceme, bristly or hairy. Spikelets compressed; florets 2, the lower male or sterile, the upper bisexual, bearded at the base, falling entire. Glumes 2, subequal, with an internode between them, 7–11-nerved, narrowed towards the apex, often hairy; back of the lower with a thickened, transverse ridge, usually well below the apex and a 'window'; ridge bearing a series of downward pointing bristles; window (a translucent depression) from below the ridge to the base; upper glume much hardened below the beak-like apex, with a series of large bristle-bearing tubercles near each margins, back often pubescent. Lemmas 2, shorter than the glumes, the lower 5-nerved, the upper slightly longer, finely 3–4-nerved. Palea resembling its lemma (lower sometimes absent).
Distribution and occurrence: World: 3 species, endemic to Australia. Qld, N.S.W, N.T., S.A., W.A.
Thyridolepis was formerly included in Neurachne. From the Greek words for 'window' and 'scale'.
Text by Jacobs, S.W.L., Whalley, R.D.B. & Wheeler, D.J.B.
Taxon concept: Grasses of New South Wales, Fourth Edition (2008).
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Spikelets c. 1.6–2 mm wide, middle and upper spikelets of the raceme hairy; peduncle silky-pubescent, sometimes only just below the inflorescence | Thyridolepis mitchelliana |
| Spikelets 1.2–1.5 mm wide, almost all glabrous; peduncle glabrous | Thyridolepis xerophila |
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