Common name: Lesser Canary Grass
Phalaris minor Retz. APNI* 
Description: Tufted annual to 1.8 m high.
Leaves with sheath mostly close around the culms or the lower becoming loose, smooth, the uppermost inflated; ligule membranous, 8–10 mm long; blade flat, 4–13 mm wide, flaccid, glabrous, smooth to scaberulous.
Panicle spike-like, ovate or oblong to cylindrical, 1–9 cm long, dense. Spikelets imbricate, strongly laterally compressed, 4–6.5 mm long. Glumes persistent, acute, subequal, as long as the spikelet, winged on the keels in the upper part, the wings often erose. One sterile floret very narrow and subulate, acuminate, the other reduced to a minute scale or occasionally absent. Fertile lemma 2.7–4 mm long, indistinctly 5-nerved, hairy; palea hairy on the keel, smooth on the sides.
Flowering: spring.
Distribution and occurrence: A pasture species that has become a minor weed of cultivation. Native of Medit. region.
NSW subdivisions: *NC, *CC, *SC, *NT, *CT, *ST, *NWS, *CWS, *SWS, *NWP, *SWP, *NFWP, *SFWP
Other Australian states: *Qld *Vic. *Tas. *W.A. *S.A.
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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