Rytidosperma racemosum

Rytidosperma racemosum, commonly known as stiped wallaby grass or clustered wallaby grass, is a tufted perennial grass of the family Poaceae native to southern and eastern Australia and New Zealand. It forms small to medium tussocks up to about 60 centimetres tall, with fine, slender, often inrolled green to grey-green leaves 5 to 20 centimetres long and 1 to 2 millimetres wide arising from short hairy sheaths. The inflorescence is a contracted erect raceme or narrow panicle 3 to 10 centimetres long with relatively few spikelets clustered on short pedicels. Each spikelet is laterally compressed and contains four to eight florets enclosed by two membranous glumes; the lemmas bear two rows of conspicuous white silky hairs and terminate in a geniculate, twisted brown awn that is diagnostic for the genus. Flowering occurs mainly in spring and early summer. The species is variable and two varieties are recognised — var. racemosum and var. obtusatum — and it occurs widely in temperate grasslands, open woodland and pastures on a range of soils, valued as a hardy native pasture grass.