Tripogon loliiformis (F.Muell.)
C.E.Hubb.
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Common name
Five Minute Grass
Rye Beetle Grass
Eight-day Grass
Derivation
Tripogon Roem. & Schult., Syst. Veg. 2: 34 (1817); from the Greek
treis (three) and pogon (beard), referring to hairs at the base
of the three lemma nerves.
loliiformis- resembling Lolium in some respect.
Published in
Bull. Misc. Inform. 448 (1934).
Habit
Annual or perennial, tufted. Basal leaf sheaths glabrous or pilose. Culms erect,
3.555 cm tall, 14-noded. Mid-culm internodes pubescent. Mid-culm
nodes glabrous. Lateral branches simple. Leaves mostly basal. Ligule a fringed
membrane, 0.12 mm long. Leaf-blades flat or conduplicate or convolute,
17.5 cm long, 0.51.3 mm wide. Leaf-blade surface glabrous or pubescent.
Inflorescence
Inflorescence solid or compound, a raceme, a panicle of racemes. Racemes 1,
erect, straight, unilateral, 29.5(17) cm long. Rhachis angular.
Spikelet packing broadside to rhachis, regular, 2-rowed.
Spikelets
Spikelets appressed, solitary. Fertile spikelets many flowered, comprising 518
fertile florets, with diminished florets at the apex, linear or oblong, laterally
compressed, 412(22) mm long, 2 mm wide, breaking up at maturity.
Spikelets disarticulating below each fertile floret. Rhachilla internodes glabrous.
Floret callus bearded.
Glumes
Glumes persistent, similar. Lower glume lanceolate or ovate, asymmetrical, 13.2(5)
mm long, 66% length of upper glume, membranous, 1-keeled, 1-nerved. Lower
glume lateral nerves absent. Lower glume apex acute. Upper glume lanceolate
or oblong or ovate, 23.5(5.2) mm long, 100% of length of adjacent
fertile lemma, membranous, 1-keeled, 13-nerved. Upper glume apex obtuse.
Florets
Fertile lemma lanceolate or elliptic or ovate, 1.93.5(4.5) mm long,
membranous, 3-nerved. Lemma apex dentate, 2-fid, mucronate. Median (principal)
awn straight, 0.61 mm long overall, limb glabrous. Palea elliptic, 1 mm
long, 3350% of length of lemma, 2-nerved. Palea keels ciliolate. Palea
surface glabrous. Apical sterile florets resembling fertile though underdeveloped.
Anthers 2, 0.2 mm long. Grain with adherent pericarp, lanceolate, 12.2
mm long.
Continental Distribution:
Tropical Asia and Australasia.
Australian Distribution:
Western Australia, Northern Territory, South Australia, Queensland, New South
Wales, Victoria.
Western Australia: Fitzgerald, Canning, Giles, Helms, Fortescue, Ashburton, Carnarvon, Austin, Eucla, Irwin, Avon, Coolgardie. Northern Territory: Darwin & Gulf, Victoria River, Barkly Tableland, Central Australia North, Central Australia South. South Australia: North-western, Lake Eyre, Gairdner-Torrens Basin, Flinders Ranges, Eastern, Eyre Peninsula, Murray. Queensland: Cook, Burke, North Kennedy, South Kennedy, Port Curtis, Leichhardt, Burnett, Wide Bay, Darling Downs, Moreton, Gregory North, Gregory South, Mitchell, Warrego, Maranoa. New South Wales: North Coast, Central Coast, South Coast, Northern Tablelands, Southern Tablelands, North-Western Slopes, Central-Western Slopes, South-Western Slopes, North-Western Plains, South-Western Plains, North Far Western Plains, South Far Western Plains. Victoria: Wimmera, Grampians, Riverina, Midlands, Victorian Volcanic Plain, East Gippsland.
Classification. (GPWG
2001):
Subfamily Chloridoideae: Cynodonteae
Notes
Native. Occurs in all mainland states in Australia, most common in central and eastern
Australia, also in Papua New Guinea. In a variety of habitats: rocky slopes,
plateaux and outcrops of granite and sandstone in skeletal reddish soils with
spinifex; on plains in red sand or sandy to clayey loams in open Acacia woodlands
especially Mulga; depressions and creeklines on gibber plains with chenopods;
floodplains in red to brown clayey soils in open eucalypt woodland; rocky slopes
and outcrops of granite in pockets of sandy loam in eucalypt forest or Callitris
and eucalypt woodland with a grassy understorey. Flowers and fruits throughout
the year. This species is termed a 'resurrection plant' as it is able to produce
green leaf from dry butts, and flowers and fruits in a very short time after
rain.
Morphologically variable in inflorescence form and spikelet arrangement.
Habit (photo)
© D. Albrecht