Lolium loliaceum
(Bory & Chaub.) Hand-Mazz. Stiff Rye-grassTufted annual, culms spreading to ascending, sometimes branched near base, to 35 cm high. Leaf-blades flat or folded, convolute when young, to 12 cm long and 5 mm wide; sheaths often inflated or loose near base of plant; ligules to 2 mm long; auricles usually well-developed, often stem-clasping. Spike to 20 cm long; rachis mostly more than 1.5 mm (to 3 mm) diam. Spikelets mostly 2–4-flowered, 5–13 mm long; glume narrow and rigid, longer than spikelet by up to c. 4 mm, hardly spreading from rachis; lemma oblong-lanceolate, awnless or with a short (to 2 mm long), fine apical awn. Flowers Sep.–Feb.
MuM, Wim, GleP, VVP, VRiv, MuF, GipP, OtP, Gold, DunT, NIS, EGL. Naturalized in all States except NT, Qld, also into the Americas and southern Africa. Indigenous in the Mediterranean. Confined chiefly in Victoria to coastal sands (e.g. around Port Phillip Bay and near Marlo), but apparently also occurring in some inland sites (saline or not).
Many early localities attributed to this species (e.g. by Willis 1970) were based on reduced, stocky forms of L. rigidum. The two species are very similar and L. loliaceum is included by some authors, e.g. C.J. Humphries (in Tutin et al. 1980), as a subspecies of L. rigidum. The identity of inland plants currently referred to L. loliaceum may be questionable; they are generally simple, very upright plants whereas coastal occurrences have spreading to ascending culms.
Walsh, N.G. (1994). Poaceae. In: Walsh, N.G.; Entwisle, T.J., Flora of Victoria Vol. 2, Ferns and Allied Plants, Conifers and Monocotyledons, pp. 356–627. Inkata Press, Melbourne.
Spinning
