Common name
Five Minute Grass
Rye Beetle Grass
Eight-day Grass

Derivation
Tripogon Roem. & Schult., Syst. Veg. 2: 34 (1817); from the Greek treis (three) and pogon (beard), referring to hairs at the base of the three lemma nerves.

loliiformis- resembling Lolium in some respect.

Published in
Bull. Misc. Inform. 448 (1934).

Habit
Annual or perennial, tufted. Basal leaf sheaths glabrous or pilose. Culms erect, 3.5–55 cm tall, 1–4-noded. Mid-culm internodes pubescent. Mid-culm nodes glabrous. Lateral branches simple. Leaves mostly basal. Ligule a fringed membrane, 0.1–2 mm long. Leaf-blades flat or conduplicate or convolute, 1–7.5 cm long, 0.5–1.3 mm wide. Leaf-blade surface glabrous or pubescent.

Inflorescence
Inflorescence solid or compound, a raceme, a panicle of racemes. Racemes 1, erect, straight, unilateral, 2–9.5(–17) cm long. Rhachis angular. Spikelet packing broadside to rhachis, regular, 2-rowed.

Spikelets
Spikelets appressed, solitary. Fertile spikelets many flowered, comprising 5–18 fertile florets, with diminished florets at the apex, linear or oblong, laterally compressed, 4–12(–22) mm long, 2 mm wide, breaking up at maturity. Spikelets disarticulating below each fertile floret. Rhachilla internodes glabrous. Floret callus bearded.

Glumes
Glumes persistent, similar. Lower glume lanceolate or ovate, asymmetrical, 1–3.2(–5) mm long, 66% length of upper glume, membranous, 1-keeled, 1-nerved. Lower glume lateral nerves absent. Lower glume apex acute. Upper glume lanceolate or oblong or ovate, 2–3.5(–5.2) mm long, 100% of length of adjacent fertile lemma, membranous, 1-keeled, 1–3-nerved. Upper glume apex obtuse.

Florets
Fertile lemma lanceolate or elliptic or ovate, 1.9–3.5(–4.5) mm long, membranous, 3-nerved. Lemma apex dentate, 2-fid, mucronate. Median (principal) awn straight, 0.6–1 mm long overall, limb glabrous. Palea elliptic, 1 mm long, 33–50% of length of lemma, 2-nerved. Palea keels ciliolate. Palea surface glabrous. Apical sterile florets resembling fertile though underdeveloped. Anthers 2, 0.2 mm long. Grain with adherent pericarp, lanceolate, 1–2.2 mm long.

Continental Distribution:
Tropical Asia and Australasia.

Australian Distribution:
Western Australia, Northern Territory, South Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria.

Western Australia: Fitzgerald, Canning, Giles, Helms, Fortescue, Ashburton, Carnarvon, Austin, Eucla, Irwin, Avon, Coolgardie. Northern Territory: Darwin & Gulf, Victoria River, Barkly Tableland, Central Australia North, Central Australia South. South Australia: North-western, Lake Eyre, Gairdner-Torrens Basin, Flinders Ranges, Eastern, Eyre Peninsula, Murray. Queensland: Cook, Burke, North Kennedy, South Kennedy, Port Curtis, Leichhardt, Burnett, Wide Bay, Darling Downs, Moreton, Gregory North, Gregory South, Mitchell, Warrego, Maranoa. New South Wales: North Coast, Central Coast, South Coast, Northern Tablelands, Southern Tablelands, North-Western Slopes, Central-Western Slopes, South-Western Slopes, North-Western Plains, South-Western Plains, North Far Western Plains, South Far Western Plains. Victoria: Wimmera, Grampians, Riverina, Midlands, Victorian Volcanic Plain, East Gippsland.

Classification. (GPWG 2001):
Subfamily Chloridoideae: Cynodonteae

Notes
Native. Occurs in all mainland states in Australia, most common in central and eastern Australia, also in Papua New Guinea. In a variety of habitats: rocky slopes, plateaux and outcrops of granite and sandstone in skeletal reddish soils with spinifex; on plains in red sand or sandy to clayey loams in open Acacia woodlands especially Mulga; depressions and creeklines on gibber plains with chenopods; floodplains in red to brown clayey soils in open eucalypt woodland; rocky slopes and outcrops of granite in pockets of sandy loam in eucalypt forest or Callitris and eucalypt woodland with a grassy understorey. Flowers and fruits throughout the year. This species is termed a 'resurrection plant' as it is able to produce green leaf from dry butts, and flowers and fruits in a very short time after rain.
Morphologically variable in inflorescence form and spikelet arrangement.