Dactyloctenium radulans

Dactyloctenium radulans (R.Br.) P.Beauv. (Poaceae), button grass or finger grass, is a short-lived tufted annual grass native and widespread across arid and semi-arid Australia, occurring in all mainland states and territories, especially across the inland savannas and gibber plains. Plants form low spreading to ascending tussocks 10-40 cm tall, often rooting at the lower nodes of decumbent stems and producing many slender erect culms. Leaf blades are flat, soft, pale green, 2-15 cm long and 2-6 mm wide, with conspicuous tubercle-based hairs along the margins and a short membranous ligule fringed with hairs. The inflorescence is highly distinctive: a head-like cluster of three to seven thick, dark-green to purplish digitate spike-like racemes 5-20 mm long, each densely packed with closely overlapping spikelets on one side and giving the head a button-like or claw-like appearance. The caryopsis is small, transversely rugose and reddish-brown.