Enteropogon acicularis

Enteropogon acicularis, the curly windmill or spider grass, is a tufted perennial grass in the family Poaceae, native to drier inland regions of Australia, where it grows on a range of soils in open woodland, mulga, gibber and clay plains, and is also found in adjacent parts of New Guinea. It forms loose to dense tussocks 30-80 cm tall, with smooth, rigid, often glaucous culms and narrow, flat to inrolled blue-green leaves with whitish margins. The diagnostic inflorescence consists of several stiff, slender, ascending-to-spreading racemes 8-20 cm long, digitately arranged at the top of the culm and bearing closely overlapping, awned spikelets in two rows along one side, the awns 2-3 cm long, twisting and curling with age to give the whole inflorescence a spidery, wind-tossed appearance. It is a useful drought-tolerant native pasture grass.