Digitaria filiformis |
Digitaria insularis |
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slender crabgrass |
sourgrass |
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Habit | Plants annual, or short-lived perennials; cespitose, not rhizomatous. | Plants perennial; cespitose, shortly rhizomatous, with knotty bases. | ||||||||||||
Culms | (10)25-150 cm, erect or decumbent, branching, sometimes rooting at the lower nodes; nodes 3-6. |
80-130 cm, erect, with densely villous cataphylls, branching from the lower and middle nodes. |
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Sheaths | keeled, basal sheaths usually with papillose-based hairs, rarely glabrous; ligules 0.3-1.5 mm; blades 2-18 cm long, 1-6 mm wide, flat or involute, glabrous, scabrous, or pilose. |
usually sparsely to densely papillose-hirsute, occasionally glabrous; ligules 4-6 mm, usually lacerate, not ciliate; blades 20-50 cm long, 10-17 mm wide, lax, smooth or scabridulous abaxially, scabridulous to scabrous adaxially. |
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Panicles | with 2-7 spikelike primary branches, these digitate or the rachises to 1 cm; longest primary branches 20-25 cm, axes triquetrous, not winged, with spikelets in unequally pedicellate groups of 3(-5) on the basal ½ (J. |
20-35 cm long, 2-10 cm wide, with numerous spikelike primary branches; primary branches 10-15 cm, appressed to ascending at maturity, axes not wing-margined or with wings less than 1/2 as wide as the midribs; internodes 3-4.5(6) mm (midbranch), bearing spikelets in unequally pedicellate pairs; secondary branches rarely present; pedicels not adnate to the branches; shorter pedicels 0.7-2 mm; longer pedicels 2.5-5 mm; terminal pedicels 2-5 mm. |
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Spikelets | 1.3-2.8 mm. |
5.5-8.2 mm (including pubescence), 4.2-5.9 mm (excluding pubescence), narrowly ovate, acuminate. |
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Lower glumes | absent or to 0.1 mm; upper glumes 1-2 mm long, from 3/4 to almost as long as the spikelets, almost glabrous or sparsely to densely pubescent with clavate to capitate hairs (use 20x magnification), glume apices rounded; lower lemmas equaling the spikelets, glabrous or glandular-pubescent, 5-7-veined, veins unequally spaced, outer 3 veins on each side closer to each other than the midvein is to the inner lateral veins; upper lemmas 1.3-2 mm, apiculate, dark brown at maturity; anthers 0.3-0.6 mm. |
0.6-0.8 mm; upper glumes 3.5-4.5 mm, 3-5-veined, pubescent on the margins; lower lemmas 4.1-5.7 mm (exceeded 1.5-5 mm by pubescence), narrowly ovate, 7-veined, pubescent between most, sometimes all, of the veins and on the margins, veins usually obscured by a dense covering of golden-brown hairs, hairs 3-6 mm, spreading at maturity, intercostal regions on either side of the midvein glabrous or pubescent with shorter, fine, white hairs, sometimes intermixed with the golden-brown hairs; upper lemmas 3.2-4.5 mm, narrowly ovate, brown when immature, dark brown at maturity, acuminate; anthers 1-1.2 mm. |
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Wipff | , pers. |
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Comm | .). |
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2n | = 36, 54. |
= 36. |
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Digitaria filiformis |
Digitaria insularis |
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Distribution |
AL; AR; CT; DC; DE; FL; GA; IA; IL; IN; KS; KY; LA; MA; MD; MI; MO; MS; NC; NH; NJ; NY; OH; OK; PA; RI; SC; TN; TX; VA; VT; WV
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AL; AZ; FL; IL; MS; TX; HI; PR; Virgin Islands
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Discussion | Digitaria filiformis grows throughout the warmer parts of the eastern United States, van filifomis the most widespread of its varieties, extending into Mexico. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Digitaria insularis grows in low, open ground of the southern United States, and extends to the West Indies, Mexico, and through Central America to Argentina. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 25, p. 364. | FNA vol. 25, p. 370. | ||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Panicoideae > tribe Paniceae > Digitaria | Poaceae > subfam. Panicoideae > tribe Paniceae > Digitaria | ||||||||||||
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Subordinate taxa | ||||||||||||||
Synonyms | Syntherisma filiformis | Trichachne insularis | ||||||||||||
Name authority | (L.) Koeler | (L.) Mez ex Ekman | ||||||||||||
Web links |