Cynodon tenellus

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Family Poaceae

Taxonomy: Cynodon tenellus R.Br.

Synonyms: 5 (APC 2026-07-30)

Brachyachne tenella (R.Br.) C.E.Hubb. (nomenclatural synonym)
Capriola tenella (R.Br.) Kuntze (nomenclatural synonym)
Cynodon altior F.Muell. (taxonomic synonym)
Cynodon tenellum R.Br. (orthographic variant)
Microchloa tenella (R.Br.) Domin (nomenclatural synonym)

Distribution (APC): WA, NT, Qld

Profiles: APC, Flora of Australia, ALA, iNaturalist, NT eFlora, Florabase, ATRP

Traits

Top source datasets: ABRS_2022 (4), ABRS_2023 (5), GrassBase_2014 (7), Metcalfe_2020_2 (15), Munroe_2019 (1), NTH_2023 (1), Osborne_2014 (1), Sjostrom_2006 (4), Stephens_2021 (2), WAH_2022_2 (3), WAH_2023_2 (2), Wenk_2022 (2), Wenk_2023 (1). See below for a full list of sources.
Summary: AusTraits contains 25 traits from 48 records in 13 datasets.

Traits by category (click to expand). For categorical traits, the values are listed. For numerical traits, the mean and range are shown.

flower morphology

sex_type (categorical): hermaphrodite (2) [sources: Metcalfe_2020_2; Sjostrom_2006]

fruit morphology

fruit_length (numerical): 1 mm (1-1 mm) [sources: ABRS_2023]
fruit_type (categorical): caryopsis (4) [sources: ABRS_2023; Metcalfe_2020_2; NTH_2023; Sjostrom_2006]
fruit_fleshiness (categorical): dry (2) [sources: Metcalfe_2020_2; Sjostrom_2006]
fruit_dehiscence (categorical): dehiscent (1); indehiscent (2) [sources: Metcalfe_2020_2; Sjostrom_2006]

leaf morphology

leaf_area (numerical): 67.5 mm2 (67.5-67.5 mm2) [sources: Metcalfe_2020_2]
leaf_length (numerical): 75 mm (50-100 mm) [sources: ABRS_2023; GrassBase_2014]
leaf_width (numerical): 1.5 mm (1-2 mm) [sources: GrassBase_2014]
leaf_compoundness (categorical): simple (1) [sources: Metcalfe_2020_2]
plant_photosynthetic_organ (categorical): leaf (1) [sources: ABRS_2023]

life history

photosynthetic_pathway (categorical): c4 (3) [sources: Metcalfe_2020_2; Munroe_2019; Osborne_2014]
plant_growth_form (categorical): herb (2); tussock (2) [sources: ABRS_2022; Metcalfe_2020_2; WAH_2022_2; Wenk_2022]
life_form (categorical): hemicryptophyte (1); therophyte (1) [sources: Metcalfe_2020_2]
life_history (categorical): annual (3); perennial (2) [sources: ABRS_2022; WAH_2022_2; Wenk_2023]
woodiness_detailed (categorical): herbaceous (3) [sources: ABRS_2022; WAH_2022_2; Wenk_2022]
stem_growth_habit (categorical): decumbent (1); erect (1) [sources: ABRS_2022]
root_structure (categorical): non_mycorrhizal (1) [sources: Metcalfe_2020_2]
pollination_syndrome (categorical): wind (1) [sources: Metcalfe_2020_2]
dispersal_syndrome (categorical): anemochory (1) [sources: Metcalfe_2020_2]
flowering_time (categorical): nyyyyyyynnnn (1); yyynnnnnnnnn (1) [sources: Stephens_2021]
vegetative_reproduction_ability (categorical): vegetative (1) [sources: Metcalfe_2020_2]
clonal_spread_mechanism (categorical): aboveground_clonal (1) [sources: Metcalfe_2020_2]

seed morphology

seed_length (numerical): 1 mm (1-1 mm) [sources: GrassBase_2014]

whole plant morphology

plant_height (numerical): 0.36 m (0.2-0.6 m) [sources: GrassBase_2014; WAH_2023_2]

Sources

dataset_id	n_traits	n_records	reference
Metcalfe_2020_2	15	15	D. Metcalfe. “Unpublished data: Traits of Poaceae spp, CSIRO”. 2020.
GrassBase_2014	4	7	W. Clayton, M. Vorontsova, and K. H. &. H. Williamson. GrassBase - The online world grass flora. 2006. url: http://www.kew.org/data/grasses-db.html.
ABRS_2023	4	5	Australian Biological Resources Study. Flora of Australia, Australian Biological Resources Study, Canberra.. accessed on 14 September, 2022.. 2023. url: http://www.ausflora.org.au.
ABRS_2022	4	4	Australian Biological Resources Study. Flora of Australia, Australian Biological Resources Study, Canberra.. accessed on 14 September, 2022.. 2022. url: http://www.ausflora.org.au.
Sjostrom_2006	4	4	A. Sjöström and C. L. Gross. “Life-history characters and phylogeny are correlated with extinction risk in the Australian angiosperms”. Journal of Biogeography 33.2 (2006), pp. 271-290. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2699.2005.01393.x.
WAH_2022_2	3	3	Western Australian Herbarium. Florabase—the Western Australian Flora.. accessed on 14 September, 2022.. 2022. url: https://florabase.dpaw.wa.gov.au/.
Stephens_2021	1	2	R. Stephens. “Unpublished data: Flowering time data from TERN plots, Macquarie University.”. 2021.
WAH_2023_2	1	2	Western Australian Herbarium. Florabase—the Western Australian Flora.. accessed on 14 September, 2022.. 2023. url: https://florabase.dpaw.wa.gov.au/.
Wenk_2022	2	2	E. Wenk. “Unpublished data: Australian plant growth forms dataset”. 2022.
Munroe_2019	1	1	S. E. M. Munroe, F. A. McInerney, J. Andrae, N. Welti, G. R. Guerin, E. Leitch, T. Hall, S. Szarvas, R. Atkins, S. Caddy-Retalic, and B. Sparrow. “The Photosynthetic Pathways of Plant Species Surveyed in Australia's National Terrestrial Monitoring Network”. Scientific Data 8 (2021), p. 97. doi: 10.1038/s41597-021-00877-z.
NTH_2023	1	1	D. of Land Resource Management and N. T. of Australia. Northern Territory Flora Online. accessed on 6 May, 2022.. 2022. url: http://eflora.nt.gov.au/.
Osborne_2014	1	1	C. Osborne, A. Salomaa, T. Kluyver, V. Visser, E. Kellogg, O. Morrone, M. Vorontsova, W. Clayton, and D. Simpson. “A global database of C4 photosynthesis in grasses”. New Phytologist 204 (2014), pp. 441-446. doi: 10.1111/nph.12942.
Wenk_2023	1	1	E. Wenk. “Unpublished data: Australian plant life history dataset, University of New South Wales, Sydney”. 2023.