Digitaria setigera |
Digitaria eriantha |
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East Indian crabgrass |
digitgrass |
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Habit | Plants of indefinite duration. | Plants perennial; sometimes stoloniferous, stolons to 6 m, or cespitose, with or without rhizomes, rhizomes, if present, short, giving the plants knotty bases. | ||||
Culms | to 120 cm tall, bases long-decumbent and rooting at the lower nodes. |
35-140 cm, erect or decumbent, not rooting at the basal nodes. |
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Sheaths | with papillose-based hairs; ligules 2.5-3.5 mm; blades 4-28 cm long, 4-12 mm wide, scabrous, usually with some scattered papillose-based hairs on the base of the adaxial surfaces, sometimes with hairs all over. |
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Panicles | with 3-11 spikelike primary branches in 1-several whorls, rachises to 6 cm; primary branches 5-15 cm, axes wing-margined, wings more than 1/2 as wide as the midribs, lower and middle portions bearing spikelets in unequally pedicellate pairs; secondary branches absent; shorter pedicels 0.3-0.8 mm; longer pedicels 1.7-2.7 mm. |
with 3-15 spikelike primary branches, digitate or with rachises to 3 cm; primary branches 5-25 cm, wing-margined, wings wider than the midribs, bearing spikelets in unequally pedicellate pairs; shorter pedicels 0.5-1.5 mm; longer pedicels 1.5-3 mm. |
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Spikelets | 2.4-3.5 mm, homomorphic, ovate. |
homomorphic, 2.8-3.5 mm, narrowly lanceolate to narrowly elliptic. |
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Lower glumes | absent or to 0.1 mm; upper glumes 0.2-1.3 mm, 1/6 - 1/3 as long as the spikelets, 1-3-veined, margins and apices with appressed, white hairs about 0.5 mm, truncate or bilobed; lower lemmas (5)7-veined, veins smooth or scabrous only over the distal 1/3, unequally spaced, margins and lateral intercostal regions silky-ciliate; upper lemmas tan or gray when immature, brown at maturity, acuminate; anthers 0.6-1.3 mm. |
0.3-0.5 mm, veinless, acute; upper glumes 1.7-1.9 mm, wooly pubescent; lower lemmas 2.5-3.5 mm, 7-veined, veins unequally spaced and smooth, occasionally the lateral veins scabridulous over the distal 1/4, margins and region between the 2 inner lateral veins appressed-pubescent, with 0.5-1.5 mm hairs; upper lemmas gray when immature, becoming brownish at maturity; anthers 1.2-1.6 mm, purple. |
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Basal | sheaths glabrous or pubescent, often densely so, hairs 4-6 mm, papillose-based; ligules (1.8)3-5 mm, erose and ciliate; blades 5-40 cm long, 3-6 mm wide, scabridulous, often also papillose-hairy. |
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2n | = 70, 72. |
= 36. |
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Digitaria setigera |
Digitaria eriantha |
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Distribution |
FL; HI; PR |
AZ; CA; FL; NM; HI; PR |
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Discussion | Digitaria setigera is native to southeastern Asia. It is now established in tropical America, growing in disturbed habitats in Florida and Central America, and probably in tropical South America. It has often been confused with D. sanguinalis. Plants in the Flora region belong to Digitaria setigera Roth var. setigera. Unlike plants of D. setigera var. calliblepharata (Henrard) Veldkamp, they do not have large, glassy hairs on their lower lemmas. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Digitaria eriantha is an African species that is widely cultivated in warm climates as a pasture grass. Several cultivars have been released for forage and hay use. The appearance of the spikelets varies considerably with the length of the hairs, those of subsp. eriantha usually being longer than those of subsp. pentzii. The cultivar, 'Survenola' has been developed from Digitaria xumfolozi D.W. Hall, a hybrid between D. setivalva Stent [= D. eriantha subsp. eriantha] and D. decumbens Stent [= D. eriantha subsp. pentzii] and has been released for use in the tropics and on well-fertilized upland soils in Florida. It is described as having much wider leaf blades than any other cultivars that have been released so far (usually 10-13 mm wide, rather than usually less than 8 mm) and glabrous leaf sheaths. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 25, p. 382. | FNA vol. 25, p. 376. | ||||
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Panicoideae > tribe Paniceae > Digitaria | Poaceae > subfam. Panicoideae > tribe Paniceae > Digitaria | ||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||
Name authority | Roth | Steud. | ||||
Web links |