Pseudoraphis spinescens

Pseudoraphis spinescens, commonly known as spiny mudgrass, is a stoloniferous perennial grass in the family Poaceae native to wetlands and floodplains across South and Southeast Asia and northern Australia. The plant produces long, creeping stolons that root at the nodes and form floating mats in shallow water or sprawling cover on wet mud as floodwaters recede. Erect flowering culms rise 20 to 80 cm tall from the stolons and bear short, lanceolate leaf blades. The inflorescence is a slender, somewhat reduced panicle composed of short raceme-like branches, each bearing spikelets accompanied by stiff, persistent, awn-like bristles that give the species its specific epithet. The grass is highly tolerant of seasonal inundation and is an important component of seasonally flooded wetlands, billabongs and rice-field margins, where it provides forage for waterbirds and grazing animals during drawdown.