Microlaena stipoides

Microlaena stipoides, weeping grass or weeping rice grass, is a fine-textured perennial bunchgrass in the family Poaceae (subfamily Oryzoideae, the rice subfamily) growing to about 0.7 m tall. It forms loose tufts of slender, narrow green leaves that remain green year-round under Australian conditions and tolerate drought, frost and acidic soils. The delicate inflorescence consists of drooping stalks of pendulous spikelets, each bearing one fertile floret and producing a small rice-like grain about 5 mm long and 1–7 mg in weight. It is native to all Australian states as well as New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and the Philippines, occupying medium- to high-rainfall (above about 600 mm) open forests, woodlands and grasslands. Long valued as a productive pasture grass with high digestibility, its protein-rich grain is now the focus of small-scale cultivation and research as a perennial native grain crop and as a low-maintenance turf species.