Chloris submutica |
Chloris gayana |
|
---|---|---|
Mexican windmill-grass |
Rhodes grass, Rhodes windmill-grass |
|
Habit | Plants perennial; usually cespitose, occasionally shortly stoloniferous. | Plants perennial; usually stoloniferous. |
Culms | 30-75 cm, erect. |
to 300 cm, erect. |
Sheaths | glabrous; ligules about 0.5 mm, shortly ciliate; blades to 20 cm long, to 5 mm wide, sometimes with long basal hairs, otherwise scabrous. |
glabrous or scabrous, often ciliate apically; ligules ciliate; blades to 30 cm long, 15 mm wide, scabrous. |
Panicles | with 5-17, evidently distinct branches in 1-3 closely-spaced whorls; branches to 7 cm, usually erect when young, spreading to reflexed at maturity, averaging 12 spikelets per cm. |
digitate, with 9-30 evidently distinct branches; branches 8-20 cm, usually somewhat divaricate, spikelet-bearing to the base, averaging 10 spikelets per cm. |
Spikelets | with 1 bisexual and 1 staminate floret. |
strongly imbricate, tawny, with 1 bisexual and (1)2-4 usually staminate, sometimes sterile florets. |
Lower glumes | 1.5-3.2 mm; upper glumes 2.5-3.4 mm; lowest lemmas 2.8-3.7 mm long, 0.6-1.1 mm wide, broadly linear to elliptic, mostly glabrous but the margins appressed pubescent, apices obtuse, not conspicuously bilobed, sometimes shortly mucronate; second florets 1.4-2.2 mm long, 0.3-0.9 mm wide, usually at least twice as long as wide, not lobed, unawned, occasionally mucronate. |
1.4-2.8 mm; upper glumes 2.2-3.5 mm; lowest lemmas 2.5-4.2 mm long, 0.7-1 mm wide, ovate to obovate or elliptic, somewhat gibbous, sides not grooved, pubescence variable, sides usually glabrous, sometimes scabrous or appressed pubescent, margins usually glabrous or appressed pubescent on the lower portions, sometimes throughout their length, sometimes with strongly divergent hairs distally, occasionally with strongly divergent hairs their entire length, divergent hairs, when present, 1+ mm, lemma apices inconspicuously bilobed, awned, awns 1.5-6.5 mm; second florets staminate or sterile, 2.2-3.2 mm long, 0.3-1 mm wide, similar to the first floret but more cylindrical, not widened distally, inflated, if at all, only near the apices, inconspicuously bilobed, awned, awns 0.8-3.2 mm; distal florets progressively smaller, longer than the subtending rachilla segment, awn-tipped or unawned. |
Caryopses | 1.7-2.3 mm long, 0.5-0.6 mm wide, ellipsoid. |
1-1.5 mm long, about 0.5 mm wide. |
2n | = ca. 65, 80. |
= 20, 30, 40. |
Chloris submutica |
Chloris gayana |
|
Distribution |
NM; TX
|
AZ; CA; FL; IL; LA; MA; ME; MS; NC; TX; VA; HI; Virgin Islands
|
Discussion | Chloris submutica grows from the southwestern United States through Mexico, Guatemala, and Colombia to Venezuela. In Mexico, it is generally found between 1000-2100 m. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Chloris gayana grows in warm-temperate to tropical regions throughout the world, including the southern United States. It is cultivated as a meadow grass in irrigated regions of the southwest. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 25, p. 216. | FNA vol. 25, p. 210. |
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Chloridoideae > tribe Cynodonteae > Chloris | Poaceae > subfam. Chloridoideae > tribe Cynodonteae > Chloris |
Sibling taxa | ||
Name authority | Kunth | Kunth |
Web links |