Thamnochortus bachmannii male spikelets

Thamnochortus bachmannii is a tufted, evergreen perennial growing unbranched culms to heights around 70 cm. The culms are often grooved, the leaf sheaths persistent, frayed in their top halves.

The male inflorescence comprises many pendulous spikelets. They are oblong and slender. The stiffly erect female spikelets become 1 cm long.

The species distribution is in the west of the Western Cape and the southwest of the Northern Cape.

The plants grow on sandy flats where it is hot and dry in summer, cold and wet or fairly wet in winter. The species is not considered to be threatened in its habitat early in the twenty first century (Dorrat-Haaksma and Linder, 2012; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; http://redlist.sanbi.org).