Australian Tropical Rainforest Plants - Online edition

Scleria brownii Kunth


Grass
Click/tap on images to enlarge
Flowers. © R.L. Barrett
Fruit. © R.L. Barrett
Flowers. ©
Leaves and flowers. © CSIRO
Herbarium sheet. © CSIRO
Family

Kunth, C.S. (1837) Enumeratio Plantarum Omnium Hucusque Cognitarum 2: 349.

Stem

Plants about 20-35 cm tall with corm-like rhizomes. Stems ca. triangular with the bases cothed in purplish hairy sheaths with long hairs at mouth of sheath.

Leaves

Leaves narrowly linear, blades 50-270 x 2-15 mm, V-shaped in transverse section. Sheaths narrow, wingless and without a ligule.

Flowers

Flowers arranged in clusters of spikes at irregular intervals on the peduncle. Each spike ca. 5 mm long, variable in composition, sometimes consisting of a single female flower, sometimes male flowers only and sometimes a single female flower plus a number of male flowers. Glumes 2.5-3 mm long reddish brown with a green keel. Anthers ca. 2 mm long, filaments ca. 1.25 mm long. Ovary 0.75-1.5 mm long, surface rugose and hairy on 3-lobed comparatively large disk. Style and stigmas 3 with hairy lobes.

Fruit

Fruits ca. 1.5 mm diam. surface not smooth, ornamented or tuberculate, seated on a 3-lobed disk. Embryo globular, less than 1 mm long. Nut trigonous with large papillae and wrinkles, white and 1-1.25 mm long. Disc persistent on fruit.

Seedlings

Features not available.

Distribution and Ecology

Occurs in WA, NT, CYP, NEQ, CEQ and southwards to south eastern Queensland. Altitudinal range from near sea level to 1260 m. Grows in rainforest, Eucalypt forest, Melaleuca swamp forest, deciduous vine thicket and in various types of woodland, heathland and wooded grassland. Also from Malesia and the Pacific Islands.

RFK Code
4050
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