Cynodon dactylon (L.) Pers.

Mat-forming, green or glaucous, 10–55 cm, with long, scaly rhizomes and long-creeping, much-branched, strong, wiry stolons rooting and tufted at nodes. Leaf-sheath chartaceous, light green to straw-coloured, ± keeled. Ligule 0.1–0.2 mm, truncate, ciliate. Collar hairs 1–2 mm. Leaf-blade 1.6–9 cm × 1–3 mm, sometimes slightly wider, abaxially glabrous or with scattered hairs, adaxially finely ribbed, papillose to scabrid on ribs, with row of hairs at base to 2 mm, midrib scabrid near blunt tip. Culm 10–50 cm, erect from geniculate base, internodes glabrous. Racemes (3)–4–6–(7), 1.5–6 cm × 1–3 mm, erect to spreading; rachis 3-angled, short-scabrid on angles, pubescent at base, bearing scarcely pedicelled imbricate spikelets in 2 secund rows. Spikelets 2–2.5 mm, green or purplish. Glumes 1–2 mm, reflexed from rachis at maturity, membranous, narrow-lanceolate, keel scabrid. Lemma = spikelet, curved to the ± hooded, shortly mucronate apex, glabrous, keel and sometimes margins with short hairs. Palea keels minutely scabrid, interkeel glabrous. Anthers 1–1.5 mm. Gynoecium: ovary 0.3–0.5 mm; stigma-styles 1–1.2 mm. Caryopsis c. 1 × 0.5 mm.

[From: Edgar and Connor (2000) Flora of New Zealand. Volume 5 (second printing).]