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Graminae
Synonyms
D. superciliatum (Hack.) A. Camus.
Common names
Tassel blue grass (Australia).
Description
A perennial tussock grass differing from D. affine and D. sericeum
in having more than 15 racemes where the latter have two to 12 (Simon,
1980). It is a robust grass growing to 80 cm with bearded nodes; the first
glume of the sessile spikelet not indurate, prominently seven-nerved; the
first glumes of both spikelets bearing long silky hairs on the margins;
a light fringe of hairs on the rachis-joints and pedicels (Henty, 1969).
Distribution
Northern Australia, Papua New Guinea, Timor, and the Philippines.
Economics
It is a very valuable grass for the wetter heavy soil "melonholes"
or gilgais in the Burdekin Valley in north Queensland (lat. 19°36'S,
rainfall 850 mm) and gives dry season grazing (Kinsey, personal communication).
It will grow on cracking clays, and flood plains with medium-textured red
earths or finely cultivated soils.
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