Rytidosperma penicillatum is a species of true grass in the subfamily Danthonioideae. It is indigenous to Australia and naturalised in New Zealand and Hawaii, USA. It was described as Arundo penicillata in 1850 by French botanist Jacques Labillardière.
Distribution R. penicillatum is naturalized on Maui in Hawaii. It is currently known from East Maui and western and northern Mauna Kea. It may have arrived within 12 accessions of Rytidosperma imported by the Hawaii Agricultural Experiment Station (HAES) from 1913–1937. The oldest specimen is a volunteer in a grass garden (BISH 448988) from 1938, but it may have been accidentally introduced in hay, as it was “common in [a] pasture” in 1944 (Hosaka 2675).
Ecology The rust fungus Uromyces danthoniae, a species found that grows parasitically on the leaves of several Rytidosperma species in New Zealand and Australia, infects Rytidosperma penicillatum. It forms dense clusters of orange-brown aecidia on both surfaces of the leaf.
It is also a host of Sphaerodothella danthoniae, a sac fungus that produces black, shiny leaf spots that occasionally coalesce into straight to irregular lines in the leaf surface of several species of Rytidosperma.
Taxonomy
Etymology Rytidosperma: 'wrinkled seed' from the Greek 'rhytidos' = wrinkled and 'sperma' = seed
References
External links