Sporobolus creber

Sporobolus creber, commonly known as slender rat-tail grass or western rat-tail grass, is a tufted perennial grass of the family Poaceae native to and widespread in eastern and northern Australia, occurring in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, the Northern Territory and South Australia in open grassland, woodland, pasture and disturbed ground on a wide range of soils. The plant forms compact tussocks 30 to 100 centimetres tall, with erect, slender, smooth, unbranched culms arising from a fibrous root system and basal sheaths that are smooth and somewhat keeled. The narrow leaf blades are flat or inrolled, 10 to 30 centimetres long and 1 to 3 millimetres wide, glabrous, tapering to a fine point, with a short ciliate ligule. The inflorescence is a long, narrow, dense, cylindrical to subcylindrical spike-like panicle 10 to 30 centimetres long, the closely appressed short branches giving the rat-tail appearance for which the genus is named. Spikelets are very small, about 1.5 to 2 millimetres long, one-flowered, awnless, greyish to purplish, and each produces a tiny mucilaginous caryopsis.