Alexfloydia is a monotypic

Monotypic

In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group with only one biological type. The term's usage differs slightly between botany and zoology. The term monotypic has a separate use in conservation biology, monotypic habitat, regarding species habitat conversion eliminating biodiversity and...

 genus of perennial

Perennial plant

A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. The term is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter lived annuals and biennials. The term is sometimes misused by commercial gardeners or horticulturalists to describe only herbaceous perennials...

 stoloniferous grass

Grass

Grasses, or more technically graminoids, are monocotyledonous, usually herbaceous plants with narrow leaves growing from the base. They include the "true grasses", of the Poaceae family, as well as the sedges and the rushes . The true grasses include cereals, bamboo and the grasses of lawns ...

es in the family Poaceae

Poaceae

The Poaceae is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of flowering plants. Members of this family are commonly called grasses, although the term "grass" is also applied to plants that are not in the Poaceae lineage, including the rushes and sedges...

, subfamily Panicoideae

Panicoideae

Panicoideae is a subfamily of the true grass family. It probably constitutes two well-distinct lineages, the Andropogonodae and the Panicodae, which are further subdivided into tribes and subtribes...

. This genus is found only in Coastal Eastern Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. There is one known species, Alexfloydia repens. This genera was named in honour of the species discoverer Alexander Floyd

Alexander Floyd

Alexander Geoffrey Floyd is an Australian botanist with an expert knowledge of rainforest plants, particularly the rainforest trees of New South Wales. He worked with the New South Wales Forestry Commission, the Department of Forestry in Papua-New Guinea and the National Parks and Wildlife Service...

.

Habitat and distribution

Alexfloydia repens is a spreading mat forming grass that occupies the king tide zone on the margins of brackish and tidal waterways. The species forms a groundcover associated with the tree species Casuarina glauca

Casuarina glauca

Casuarina glauca, commonly known as the swamp she-oak, is a species of Casuarina native to the east coast of Australia. It is found from central Queensland south to southern New South Wales. It has become naturalised in the Everglades in Florida where it is considered a weed.The larvae of the...

and the Endangered Ecological Community Swamp Oak Floodplain Forest. Currently this grass is known only from a few locations in the Coffs Harbour region.

Status

This species is listed as Endangered on the schedules of the NSW Threatened Species Act.

Ecology

A. repens is the sole larval food plant for the endangered Black grass-dart butterfly Ocybadistes knightorum (Lambkin & Donaldson, 1994).