Citation: Sw. in Willd., Sp. Pl. 4:146 (1805).

Synonymy: Ventenatia major Smith, Exot. Bot. 2:13, t. 66 (1805-8); S. majus (Smith) Druce, Rep. Botl Soc. Exch. Club Br. Isl. 1916:64 (1917).

Common name: Grass trigger-plant.

Description:
Perennials up to 60 cm high when flowering, with a short stout rootstock densely covered with tufted leaves; leaves linear-subulate, 5-30 x 0.1-0.6 cm, pointed but usually wearing off, entire or with sharp distant serrations mainly towards the apex, grooved above, keeled and with recurved margins below, tough, glabrous.

Inflorescence a raceme-like thyrse with axillary monochasia reduced to single short-stalked flowers (subtended by 2 bracts), more or less glandular-pubescent; peduncle 15-60 cm long, glabrous or glabrescent below becoming more glandular-pubescent upwards; bracts ovate to linear, 1.3-3 mm long; sepals connate into a minutely 2-lobed lip and minutely 3-lobed lip, glandular-pubescent; corolla with the tube scarcely longer than the sepals, pink with a papillose appendage in the throat, yellow-tipped; lobes oblanceolate with a rounded apex, subequal, vertically paired, glandular-pubescent outside; labellum oblanceolate-acuminate, with 2 subulate lobes towards the base; column red becoming darker with age, with long glands on either side of the anthers; stigma oblong, cushion-like; ovary with several ovules along an elongate central stalked placenta.

Capsule ellipsoid, 7-12 mm long, dehiscing at the apex first then splitting along the whole length; seeds ellipsoid, c. 2 mm long, with 4 vertical ridges.

	Habit, flowers, fruit closed and dehisced
Image source: fig. 640d in Jessop J.P. & Toelken H.R. (Ed.) 1986. Flora of South Australia (4th edn).

Published illustration: Erickson (1958) Triggerplants, t. 50, figs 1-10; Cochrane et al. (1968) Flowers and plants of Victoria, fig. 490.

Distribution:  In moist or marshy areas and often margin of forests.   Qld; N.S.W.; Vic.; Tas. Conservation status: native Flowering time: Oct. — Jan.

SA Distribution Map based on current data relating to specimens held in the State Herbarium of South Australia

Biology: No text

Taxonomic notes: At present it is not clear whether some of the very narrow-leaved plants should be recognised as a separate var. angustifolium Mildbraed (1908) Pflanzenreich 4, 278:73 or whether they are merely depauperate plants.

Author: Not yet available