Flora of North America species comparison

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Eragrostis airoides

darnel lovegrass
Habit Plants perennial; cespitose, with innovations, without rhizomes, not glandular.
Culms

30-110 cm, erect, glabrous below the nodes.
Sheaths

glabrous or pilose, hairs to 5 mm;

ligules 0.1-0.2 mm;

blades 8-22 mm long, (1)2-4(5) mm wide, flat to folded, glabrous abaxially, scabridulous adaxially.
Panicles

18-70 cm long, 3-25 cm wide, diffuse, ovate;

primary branches 4-20 cm, appressed or diverging 10-70° from the rachises, naked basally;

pulvini glabrous;

pedicels 2.4-11 mm, divergent.
Spikelets

1.3-2 mm long, 0.8-1.8 mm wide, ovate to lanceolate, plumbeous, with 1-3 florets;

disarticulation acropetal, in the rachilla below the florets, glumes deciduous;

rachilla prolonged above the terminal floret.
Glumes

lanceolate to ovate, membranous;

lower glumes 0.8-1 mm;

upper glumes 1.1-1.4 mm;

lemmas 0.8-1.2 mm, ovate, membranous, plumbeous, keels and lateral veins inconspicuous, apices obtuse;

paleas 0.8-1.2 mm, membranous, bases not projecting beyond the lemmas, apices obtuse;

anthers 3, 0.3-0.5 mm, purplish.
Caryopses

0.4-0.5 mm, ovoid, reticulate, reddish-brown.
Comm

.).
2n

= 36 (Davidse, pers.

Eragrostis airoides
Distribution
from FNA
TX
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Eragrostis airoides is a South American species that, in the Flora region, is known only from roadsides and disturbed sites in Brazos County, Texas. It is an enigmatic species, often treated as Sporobolus brasiliensis (Raddi) Hack., which it resembles in its chromosome base number of x = 9 and caryopsis morphology, but its frequent possession of spikelets with more than 1 floret and its mode of spikelet disarticulation argue for its retention in Eragrostis.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 25, p. 103.
Parent taxa Poaceae > subfam. Chloridoideae > tribe Cynodonteae > Eragrostis
Sibling taxa
E. amabilis, E. atrovirens, E. bahiensis, E. barrelieri, E. capillaris, E. cilianensis, E. ciliaris, E. cumingii, E. curtipedicellata, E. curvula, E. cylindriflora, E. echinochloidea, E. elliottii, E. elongata, E. erosa, E. frankii, E. gangetica, E. hirsuta, E. hypnoides, E. intermedia, E. japonica, E. lehmanniana, E. lugens, E. lutescens, E. mexicana, E. minor, E. obtusiflora, E. palmeri, E. pectinacea, E. pilosa, E. plana, E. polytricha, E. prolifera, E. refracta, E. reptans, E. scaligera, E. secundiflora, E. sessilispica, E. setifolia, E. silveana, E. spectabilis, E. spicata, E. superba, E. swallenii, E. tef, E. trichodes, E. trichophora, E. unioloides
Name authority Nees
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



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