Australian Tropical Rainforest Plants - Online edition

Isolepis humillima (Benth.) K.L.Wilson


Grass
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Herbarium specimen. © DERM
Family

Wilson, K.L. (1981) Telopea 2(1): 167. Type: ?.

Stem

An annual herb 20-60 mm tall and densely tufted, with sometimes decumbent stems 1-20 mm long. Stems trigonous to triquetrous and ca. 0.3 mm wide.

Leaves

Leaves basal and grass-like, glabrous with reddish to purplish sheaths up to 8 mm long with translucent margins; blade linear and 40-50 x 0.6-1.0 mm.

Flowers

Inflorescence a head of 1-10 spikelets, with several leaf-like involucral bracts at least twice as long as the leaves. Spikelets ovoid, 3-4 mm long and many flowered. Glumes with a prominent green keel and 2 veins on either side of keel, white to reddish translucent margins, ovate to linear, 1.2-2.5 mm long, glabrous, obtuse. Perianth absent.

Fruit

Nut gossy white to straw-coloured, trigonous, broadly elliptic, 0.4-0.5 mm long and minutely reticulate.

Seedlings

Features not available.

Distribution and Ecology

Occurs in WA, NT, CYP and NEQ. Altitudinal range from 35-405 m. Grows in alluvial and silty soil on banks of creeks and rivers in closed forest and Melaleuca forest, also in moist places in Eucalypt woodland and along edges of lagoons.

Synonyms
Scirpus humillimus Benth., Flora Australiensis 7: 324(1878), Type: N. Australia, South Alligator River, Arnhem Land, F. Mueller.
RFK Code
4216
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