Kyllinga brevifolia

Kilinotu

Perennial, 3-45 cm. Rhizomes horizontal, long-creeping, with dark brown sheathing scales, aerial shoots arising singly from every second node. Stem 3-45 cm, slender, erect, trigonous, smooth. Leaves shorter than to overtopping inflorescence. Bracts 3-4, very unequal, longest to c. 20 cm, greatly exceeding inflorescence. Inflorescence a single dense, sessile, ovoid to globose head, composed of c. 60-70 spikelets. Spikelets 2-4 x 0.8-1 mm, lanceolate, with one flower. Rachilla articulated nears its base, minute, not winged. Glumes persistent, 2-3.5 x 2-2.5 mm, unequal, lanceolate, acuminate, pale greenish with minutely setulose greenish keel. Stamens 1-3. Stigmas 2. Nut lenticular, with an angle against rachilla, c.  ½ as long as glumes, yellowish-brown. R. & fro 8-10. Wet grassland, and on seasonnlly-flooded sands and gravels, in river mouths, gravel pits and sand dunes, nr s.l.

Tropical America and Asia, very locally naturalised in Europe .