Rytidosperma setaceum

Rytidosperma setaceum is a slender densely tufted perennial grass of the Poaceae family growing 20-70 cm tall in compact tussocks from a fibrous knotty crown without rhizomes. Culms are erect or geniculately ascending, slender, smooth, with few short nodes. Leaf blades are mostly basal, fine, inrolled to almost setaceous (bristle-like, whence the name), 5-25 cm long and well under 1 mm wide when rolled, finely scaberulous and dull greyish-green; leaf sheaths are smooth to softly hairy, and the ligule is a fringe of short hairs. The inflorescence is a slender, erect, contracted panicle 4-10 cm long with short ascending branches bearing several spikelets, the whole often pale straw-coloured to faintly tinged purplish at maturity. Spikelets are 10-15 mm long (excluding the awns) and contain four to seven closely overlapping florets. Glumes are large, papery, pale and nearly equal the florets. Lemmas are 3-5 mm long, with two transverse rows of white hairs across the back, two short narrow lateral lobes terminating in fine bristles, and a stout central geniculate twisted awn 5-10 mm long. Native to dry sclerophyll forest, woodland and grassland habitats across temperate Australia, particularly common on well-drained gravelly soils.