Coast Blown-grass

Scientific Name:	Lachnagrostis billardierei ssp. billardierei	Coast Blown-grass Photo: A J Brown
Status:	Native to southern Australia and New Zealand.
Plant Description:	Large tussocks, erect, hairless perennial grass, 25-75 cm tall with, smooth, rather stiff, dark to blue-green, flat leaves to 40 cm long and 3-7 mm wide; ligule membranous, obtuse, 3-12 mm long. Inflorescence, a purplish-green to purple, erect, rather stiff, open and broad panicle to 30 cm long, becoming exserted from the leaf sheath with maturity. Spikelets small (4-6.5 mm long), generally purple or reddish-purple, on short fine stalks. Each spikelet with a single, smooth hairless, floret with a fine, sharply bent awn or bristle attached to its mid-back region and readily visible beyond the end of the spikelet.
Habitat:	Scattered right along the Victorian coastline in slightly to moderately saline wet marshes and on saline flats and around lakes in Western Victoria to the Mallee but nowhere common.
Comments:	Similar appearance to Common Blown-grass. A simplified key to some of the species on salt-land can be accessed here - Blown-grass species key

Coast Blown-grass - panicle
Photo: A J Brown

Coast Blown-grass
Photo: A J Brown