Common name: Rice Cut Grass
Leersia oryzoides (L.) Sw. APNI* 
Description: Perennial to 1.5 m high, with long or rarely shortened rhizomes; culms branching, decumbent and sprawling, rooting at the nodes, slender to somewhat stout, few-many noded.
Leaves with sheath scabrous; ligule truncate, 0.5–1.5 mm long; blade spreading to somewhat ascending, 5–15 mm wide, usually scabrous to spiny.
Panicles terminal and axillary, exserted or included, 10–30 cm long, branches very fine, flexuous. Spikelets 4.5–8 mm long, strongly compressed. Glumes reduced to a narrow rim at the tip of the pedicel. Lemma the size and shape of the spikelet, 5-nerved, glabrous to ciliate on the keel with hairs to 0.5 mm long. Palea as long to slightly longer than the lemma, 3-nerved. Grain laterally compressed and flat, oblique, enclosed by the lemma and palea.
Flowering: summer.
Distribution and occurrence: A weed of wet areas on heavy soil. Native of N Amer., Eur. and Japan.
NSW subdivisions: *SWP
Other Australian states: *Qld *Vic.
Text by S. W. L. Jacobs & S. M. Hastings
Taxon concept: 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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