Ehrharta diplax

Ehrharta diplax is a perennial tufted to shortly rhizomatous grass of the family Poaceae, distributed from Sulawesi and New Guinea east through Fiji and the Society Islands to New Zealand including the Antipodes. Plants typically reach 30 to 80 centimetres tall, with thin, slightly drooping, flat to loosely involute leaf blades 5 to 20 centimetres long and 3 to 8 millimetres wide arising from smooth or finely puberulent sheaths bearing membranous ligules. The inflorescence is a slender, loose, somewhat nodding panicle 5 to 20 centimetres long with fine spreading branches each bearing several pedicelled spikelets. As in all Ehrharta the spikelets are characteristic of the genus, with two empty sterile lemmas below a single fertile floret enclosed by glabrous to minutely scabrous lemmas; the lower sterile lemma is shorter than the upper, and the fertile lemma is often shortly awned or muticous. Flowering occurs in summer. It occupies open forest, shrubland margins and disturbed ground from sea level to moderate elevations.