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Graminoid; Notes: Tall, tufted, perennial grass, up to 1.25m high, when in flower with creeping, woody rhizome. Culms erect, thickened, rigid and somewhat reed-like, smooth, glabrous, unbranched. Leaf blade exceptionally long, up to 1 m long, tightly folded, 10 mm wide, dull green, base not auriculate, adaxially with dense, white adpressed hairs, abaxially glabrous, apically expanded, rigid and erect, margins scabrous. Ligule a narrow, membranous ridge. Leaf sheath shorter than blade, 10 cm long, basally tightly circumculmate but apically pulling away from culm and conjunction with blade not clearly defined. Inflorescence an open panicle narrowly ovate in outline, 30 x 5 cm; peduncle 50 cm long, beige to purple-tinted. Racemes whorled, up to 10 cm long, ascending purplish. Spikelets paired, lower spikelet awned. Glumes with purple spines, reddish in colour imparting a characteristic crimson hue to entire inflorescence. Base of stalk with tuft of hairs. Corr. nom.: EK 23.06.2003. |