Ottochloa nodosa (Kunth) Dandy

Poaceae

Dandy, J.E. (1931) Journal of Botany, British and Foreign : 55.

Perennial. Culms decumbent, 20-200 cm tall, spongy, striated, nodes glabrous and purplish brown, rooting from the lower nodes. Sometimes with adventitous roots.

Leaf-blades disarticulating from the sheaths, lanceolate, 1.5-20 cm long, 2-20 mm wide. Leaf-blade venation with obscure cross nerves, abaxial surface with tubercle-based hairs. Leaf-blade margins scabrous; leaf sheath glabrous with only a few tubercle-based hairs at the apex. Ligule a ciliated membrane, 0.2-0.6 mm long, truncate.

Inflorescence a compound panicle. Racemes unilateral, 2-15 cm long, secondarily branched. Central inflorescence axis 10-20 cm long. Rhachis angular. Spikelets solitary. Fertile spikelets 2-flowered, comprising 1 fertile floret, lower floret sterile, upper fertile, without rhachilla extension, oblong, dorsally compressed, 2.5-3.6 mm long, falling entire. Glumes similar, thinner than fertile lemma. Lower glume ovate, 1.2-2.1 mm long, equalling upper glume, 30-40% of length of spikelet, membranous, 3-5-nerved. Lower glume margins eciliate or ciliolate. Lower glume apex acute. Upper glume lanceolate or ovate, 1.5-2.4 mm long, 30-40% of length of adjacent fertile lemma, membranous, 5-7-nerved. Upper glume margins eciliate or ciliolate. Upper glume apex acute. Basal sterile floret 1, without significant palea. Lemma of lower sterile floret similar to upper glume, ovate, 2.5-3.6 mm long, 100% of length of spikelet, membranous, 7-nerved, acute. Fertile lemma elliptic, 2.4-3.5 mm long, coriaceous, much thinner on margins, 5-nerved. Lemma margins involute, ciliolate. Lemma apex acute. Palea involute, coriaceous, 2-nerved.

Caryopsis with an oval indentation at the hilum and flattened on the back side, testa reddish brown.

Features not available.

Occurs in CYP, NEQ and CEQ as far south as south-eastern Queensland. Altitudinal range from near sea level to 1050 m. Grows in rainforest, sclerophyll forest, Eucalypt forest, vine forest, vine thicket and along rivers and streams in various types of woodland. Also from

Panicum aequabile Domin, Bibliotheca Botanica 20(850: 297(1914), Type: Nordost-Queensland: im Regenwälde am Waterfall Creek sowie in einem Pandanus-Sumpf bei Yarraba (DOMIN, I. 1910).