Eragrostis airoides
Eragrostis reptans
darnel lovegrass
creeping lovegrass
30-110 cm, erect, glabrous below the nodes.
rooting at the lower nodes, erect portion 5-20 cm, glabrous, pilose, or villous, particularly below the panicles.
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.
mostly scabrous, margins sometimes with 0.1-0.4 mm hairs;
ligules 0.1-0.6 mm;
blades 1-4 cm long, 1-4.5 mm wide, flat or conduplicate, abaxial surfaces glabrous, adaxial surfaces appressed pubescent, hairs about 0.2 mm.
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.
terminal, 1-3 cm long, 0.6-2.5 cm wide, ovate, contracted, exerted or partially included in the upper leaf sheaths, rachises somewhat viscid, pilose or glabrous;
primary branches 0.5-1.5 cm, appressed to the rachises, each terminating in a spikelet;
pulvini sparsely pilose or glabrous;
pedicels 0.2-2 mm, shorter than the spikelets, glabrous or hairy.
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.
5-26 mm long, 1.5-4.7 mm wide, linear to ovate, greenish to stramineous, with 16-60 florets;
disarticulation in the pistillate florets basipetal, the lemmas falling separately, staminate spikelets not or tardily disarticulating.
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.
unequal, ovate, hyaline, glabrous or sparsely hirsute;
lower glumes 0.8-1.6 mm, 1-veined;
upper glumes 1.5-2.5 mm, 1-3-veined;
lemmas (1.5)1.8-4 mm, ovate, hyaline to membranous, lateral veins conspicuous, greenish, apices acute to acuminate, sometimes prolonged into a mucro, mucros to 0.4 mm;
paleas 0.7-3.8 mm, hyaline, about 1/2 as long as the lemmas in pistillate florets, as long as the lemmas in staminate florets, keels scabridulous;
anthers 3, 1.4-2.2 mm, reddish to yellowish.
0.4-0.5 mm, ovoid, reticulate, reddish-brown.
0.4-0.6 mm, ellipsoid, somewhat laterally compressed, smooth, light reddish-brown.
.).
= 36 (Davidse, pers.
= 60.
Eragrostis airoides
Eragrostis reptans
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.)
Eragrostis reptans grows in wet sand, gravel, and clay soils along rivers and lake margins from the United States to northern Mexico, at 0-400 m, frequently with Cynodon dactylon and Heliotropium. It flowers from April through November.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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