Loonder Grass is a densely clumped perennial grass
with creeping rhizome; stems 30-120 cm high, erect or geniculately
rising up. Leaf-blades are flat, up to 30 cm long and 4 mm wide. False
panicles are 20-30 cm long, compound, loose, the racemes solitary or
paired; spatheole 1.5-2 cm long, usually tinged with grey, red or
purple, hairless; raceme containing 2-4 fertile spikelets. Lower glume
lanceshaped, 5-8 mm long, hairless to sparsely or densely
tuberculate-fringed with hairs. Stalkless spikelet 5-7 mm long, dorsally
compressed, with a blunt bearded callus c.l mm long; lower glume finely
velvet-hairy or nearly hairless to tuberculate-fringed with hairs
especially on the keels; upper lemma lanceshaped, hyaline, awnless.
Stalked spikelet 6-8 mm long including the callus, finely velvet-hairy
to tuberculate-fringed with hairs on the keels. Loonder Grass is found
in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir eastwards through the western
Himalayas and Nepal, at altitudes of 700-2300 m. Flowering: June-October.