Austrostipa verticillata

Austrostipa verticillata, commonly called slender bamboo grass, is a tall perennial tussock grass in the Poaceae family, endemic to Australia and occurring across all mainland states. It forms an open tussock 1 to 2.5 metres tall, with stout, hollow, bamboo-like culms that are conspicuously branched at the upper nodes, an unusual feature that distinguishes it from most other Australian Austrostipa species. The leaves are linear, flat to loosely inrolled, 20 to 40 cm long and 4 to 10 mm wide, mid-green to slightly glaucous, with a finely scabrous upper surface and a long, narrow ligule. The inflorescence is a large, loose, much-branched panicle 30 to 60 cm long, the slender branches often whorled at the nodes and bearing single-flowered spikelets at their tips. Each spikelet has long, narrow, papery glumes and a fertile floret with a long, twice-bent, geniculate awn 4 to 8 cm long, brown when mature. It grows along watercourses, in shaded forest understorey and on protected slopes.