| Genus Plinthanthesis | Family Poaceae |
Common Name: Wallaby grasses
Description: Tufted perennials.
Leaves with ligule a rim of short hairs; blade folded in bud, narrow, flat or convolute.
Inflorescence paniculate, open or contracted.
Spikelets pedicellate, rachilla disarticulating above the glumes and between the lemmas, with the internodes more than half as long as lemma; florets 3-many, bisexual or the uppermost reduced. Glumes longer than the lemmas, equal, acute, translucent or firm, with a prominent midnerve and sometimes 1 or 2 pairs of faint lateral nerves. Lemmas firmly membranous or leathery, rounded on the back, pubescent on the lower 60%; apex 2-fid, lobes acute or subulate; awn arising from the sinus, short, geniculate or absent; callus minute. Palea equal to the lemma, entire or 2-toothed.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 3 species, endemic Australia. Australia: N.S.W., Vic.
Text by S. W. L. Jacobs & K. L. McClay
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Central awn 2 mm or more in length, reflexed and/or twisted at the base; lobes half as long as the body of the lemma | Plinthanthesis urvillei |
| Central awn less than 2 mm long and bent, reduced to a mucro or absent; lobes less than half as long as the body of the lemma | 2 |
| 2 | Lemma mucronate or awnless; lobes of lemma 0.5 mm long | Plinthanthesis rodwayi |
| Awn c. 1 mm long, bent; lobes of lemma 1–1.5 mm long
Back to 1 | Plinthanthesis paradoxa |
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