Common name: Yadbila Grass, Coolabah Grass
Panicum queenslandicum Domin APNI*
Description: Densely caespitose, perennial to 0.8 m high, the innovations often extravaginal.
Leaves with sheath mostly glabrous; ligule a dense row of cilia c. 1 mm long; blade to 3.5 mm wide.
Panicle at length exserted, compound, stiffly and widely spreading, to 28 cm long and about as broad with rather few spikelets produced in twos and threes at the apices of the rigid branches; lower branches whorled, to 25 cm long. Spikelets 3–7 mm long, pale or purplish, glabrous. Lower glume 75–95% the length of the spikelet, usually 5-nerved, minutely scabrid on the midnerve near the tip; upper the shape and size of the spikelet, 5–7-nerved. Lower floret sterile; lemma similar to the upper glume 5–7-nerved; palea hyaline, or absent. Upper lemma crustaceous, smooth, shining, obscurely nerved, obscurely very finely striolate.
Flowering: summer.
Distribution and occurrence: Grows in floodways in drier country.
NSW subdivisions: NC, NT, NWS, CWS, SWS, NWP, SWP
Other Australian states: Qld
Text by S. W. L. Jacobs & C. A. Wall Taxon concept:
| Key to the varieties | |
1 | Spikelets usually less than c. 5 mm long; fertile floret 2.0–2.75 mm long | var. queenslandicum |
| Spikelets 5–7 mm long, fertile floret 3–3.5 mm long; glumes rather more drawn out into an acuminate tip; spikelets narrow | var. acuminatum |
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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