Common name
Sweet Smother Grass
Durban Grass

Derivation
Dactyloctenium Willd., Enum. Pl. 1029 (1809); from the Greek daktylos (finger) and ktenion (a little comb), alluding to the digitate inflorescences.

australe- Latin for of the South.

Published in
Syn. Pl. Glum. 1: 212 (1854).

Habit
Perennial, mat forming or tufted. Stolons present. Culms erect or geniculately ascending or decumbent, 30–80 cm tall, rooting from lower nodes. Ligule a fringed membrane, 5 mm long. Leaf-blades 5–27 cm long, 2.5–4.5 mm wide. Leaf-blade surface pilose. Leaf-blade apex acuminate.

Inflorescence
Inflorescence digitate, with spicate branches. Spikes 2–5(–6), ascending. Spikes closely spaced, or oblong. Spikes unilateral, 3–5.5 cm long, 3–7 mm wide. Rhachis deciduous from axis, flattened, terminating in a barren bristle-like extension. Spikelet packing broadside to rhachis, imbricate, regular, 2-rowed.

Spikelets
Spikelets pectinate, solitary. Fertile spikelets many flowered, comprising 2–6 fertile florets, with diminished florets at the apex, elliptic or oblong or ovate, laterally compressed, 4–5.5 mm long, breaking up at maturity. Spikelets disarticulating above glumes but not between florets.

Glumes
Glumes persistent, dissimilar. Lower glume oblong, 1.75 mm long, 100% length of upper glume, 1-keeled, 1-nerved. Lower glume lateral nerves absent. Lower glume apex truncate, mucronate (0.5–0.75mm). Upper glume obovate, 1.7–1.9 mm long, 50% of length of adjacent fertile lemma, membranous, 1-keeled, 1-nerved. Upper glume lateral nerves absent. Upper glume apex truncate, awned. Upper glume awn subapical, 2.2–3.5 mm long.

Florets
Fertile florets appressed to rhachilla. Fertile lemma lanceolate in profile or ovate in profile, 2.5–4 mm long, membranous, 3-nerved. Lemma midnerve scabrous. Lemma lateral nerves obscure. Lemma apex setaceously acuminate, mucronate (0.5–0.7 mm), 1-awned. Median (principal) awn 0.5–1.5 mm long. Palea with flaps as wide as body, 100% of length of lemma, 2-nerved. Palea keels wingless. Apical sterile florets resembling fertile though underdeveloped. Anthers 3, 1–1.8 mm long, orange. Grain with free soft pericarp, ellipsoid or obovoid, obtuse.

Continental Distribution:
Africa, Australasia.

Australian Distribution:
Western Australia, Queensland, New South Wales.

Western Australia: Carnarvon, Drummond. Queensland: Cook, Burke, North Kennedy, Port Curtis, Leichhardt, Burnett, Wide Bay, Moreton, Warrego. New South Wales: North Coast, Central Coast.

Classification. (GPWG 2001):
Chloridoideae: Cynodonteae

Notes
Introduced; naturalised on the N coast of N.S.W. and in SE Qld, and possibly around Perth in W.A.; native to coastal and near-coastal areas of southern and eastern Africa. Introduced in Australia and elsewhere as a lawn grass and sand-binder, particularly for shady areas.

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