Rytidosperma pilosum

Rytidosperma pilosum, commonly called velvet wallaby grass, is a tufted cool-season perennial bunchgrass in the Poaceae family forming dense compact basal clumps typically 20-60 cm tall. The plant produces narrow, flat to inrolled, often hairy green to bluish-green leaf blades and slender erect flowering culms that bear loose panicles of pale, plump, awned spikelets with conspicuous tufts of white silky hairs along the lemma margins, accounting for the specific epithet pilosum (hairy). The fluffy appearance of the seed head distinguishes Rytidosperma from many other native grasses. The species is native to southeastern Australia and New Zealand, where it occupies grasslands, open eucalyptus woodlands, montane meadows, and roadsides on a variety of soil types, tolerating drought, grazing, and seasonal fire. It is one of the principal native pasture grasses of temperate southern Australia and is increasingly used in low-input revegetation and erosion-control plantings.