Common name
Shot Grass
Sago Grass

Derivation

Paspalidium Stapf in D.Prain, Fl. Trop. Afr. 9: 15, 582 (1920); from Paspalum (another grass genus) and the Greek -idium, a diminutive but here employed as a name-forming suffix.

globoideum- from the Latin globus (sphere) and the Greek -oideum (resemblance). Spikelets globose.

Published in
Bull. Misc. Inform. 317 (1923).

Common synonyms
Setaria globoidea (Domin) R.D.Webster
Panicum globoideum Domin

Habit
Perennial, densely tufted. Rootstock evident. Cataphylls absent, or present. Rhizomes short. Culms erect, 25–80 cm tall, 3–10-noded. Mid-culm internodes channelled, hollow, glabrous. Mid-culm nodes glabrous. Lateral branches simple or sparsely branched, arising from mid culm and upper culm. Leaf-sheaths striately nerved, smooth or scaberulous. Leaf-sheaths outer margin glabrous. Ligule a fringed membrane, 0.75 mm long, truncate. Leaf-blades 6–25 cm long, 3–6 mm wide. Leaf-blade surface scaberulous or scabrous. Leaf-blade margins smooth or scabrous. Leaf-blade apex attenuate.

Inflorescence
Inflorescence compound, a panicle of racemes. Racemes 5–10, appressed, flexuous, unilateral, 1.5–6 cm long, 0.3–0.55 mm wide, bearing 5–20 fertile spikelets on each, simple or secondarily branched. Central inflorescence axis 7–20 cm long, tip filiform. Rhachis angular, scabrous on margins, terminating in a barren bristle-like extension. Spikelet packing abaxial, 2-rowed.

Spikelets
Spikelets solitary. Pedicels 0.5 mm long. Fertile spikelets 2-flowered, comprising 1 fertile floret, lower floret male, upper fertile, without rhachilla extension, orbicular, globose, terete or dorsally compressed, gibbous, 3–4.5 mm long, 2–2.7 mm wide, falling entire.

Glumes
Glumes thinner than fertile lemma. Lower glume ovate, clasping, gibbous, 1.6–2.3 mm long, 33–50% of length of spikelet, membranous, 5–9-nerved. Lower glume surface glabrous. Lower glume apex acute, muticous or mucronate. Upper glume orbicular, 3–4 mm long, 100% of length of spikelet, membranous, 9–13-nerved. Upper glume lateral nerves with cross-nerves. Upper glume apex obtuse.

Florets
Basal sterile florets 1, with palea. Lemma of lower sterile floret similar to upper glume, orbicular, 3–4 mm long, 100% of length of spikelet, membranous, 9–11-nerved, with cross-nerves, sulcate, acute. Palea of lower sterile floret 100% of length of lemma. Fertile lemma ovate, 3–4.5 mm long, indurate, of similar consistency on margins, pallid. Lemma surface granulose, rough in lines, rugose. Lemma margins involute. Lemma apex apiculate, mucronate. Palea reflexed at apex, indurate, 2-keeled. Grain with adherent pericarp, orbicular. Embryo 66% of length of grain.

Continental Distribution:
Australasia.

Australian Distribution:
Western Australia, Queensland, New South Wales.

Western Australia: Gardner. Queensland: Burke, North Kennedy, South Kennedy, Port Curtis, Leichhardt, Burnett, Darling Downs, Moreton, Warrego, Maranoa. New South Wales: Northern Tablelands, North-Western Slopes, North-Western Plains.

Classification. (GPWG 2001):
Panicoideae: Paniceae

Notes
Native. In tropical and subtropical wet sclerophyll forests, Brigalow forests, tropical and subtropical sub-humid woodlands, and semi-arid shrub woodlands. Flowers Feb.–June.