Common name: Snow Fescue
Hookerochloa eriopoda (Vickery) S.W.L.Jacobs APNI* Synonyms: Austrofestuca eriopoda (Vickery) S.W.L.Jacobs APNI* Festuca eriopoda Vickery APNI*
Description: Erect, densely caespitose, subglabrous perennials to c. 1 m tall.
Culms striate, smooth. Sheaths rather broad, striate, ± smooth, closed at the base when young, adpressed to the culms, old ones sometimes persisting as brownish fibres (tow) at the base; ligule membranous, pubescent, 2–3 mm long; blade of the basal leaves tightly folded, subulate, finely acuminate, striate, to 25 cm long, 0.5 mm wide, very scabrous, not auriculate at the base.
Inflorescence exserted, 20–30 cm long, branches slender. Spikelets laterally compressed, 3–5-flowered, 10–13 mm long, greenish or purplish. Glumes acute, subequal or unequal, 3(–5)-nerved. Lemmas obscurely 5-nerved, narrow-lanceolate in outline, narrowly and erosely truncate and minutely bifid at the membranous apex, 6–8 mm long, the keel prolonged into a minute awn c. 1 mm long from between the lobes; palea narrowly truncate and minutely 2–3-fid at the apex.
Flowering: Flowers summer.
Distribution and occurrence: Grows in open forest and grassland, occasionally in damp sites.
NSW subdivisions: SC, NT, CT, ST, SWS
Other Australian states: Vic.
Text by Jacobs, Whalley & Wheeler; entered L.J. Murray Sep 2009 Taxon concept: Grasses of NSW Edition 4 (2008) Jacobs, Whalley & Wheeler; previously Austrofestuca eriopoda Flora of NSW 4 (1993).
APNI* Provides a link to the Australian Plant Name Index (hosted by the Australian National Botanic Gardens) for comprehensive bibliographic data ***The AVH map option provides a detailed interactive Australia wide distribution map drawn from collections held by all major Australian herbaria participating in the Australian Virtual Herbarium project.
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