Eragrostis curvula |
Eragrostis reptans |
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weeping love grass |
creeping lovegrass |
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Habit | Plants perennial; cespitose, forming innovations at the basal nodes, without glands. | Plants annual; unisexual, pistillate and staminate plants morphologically similar; mat-forming, without innovations, without glands. |
Culms | (45)60-150 cm, erect, glabrous or glandular. |
rooting at the lower nodes, erect portion 5-20 cm, glabrous, pilose, or villous, particularly below the panicles. |
Sheaths | with scattered hairs, hairs to 9 mm; ligules 0.6-1.3 mm; blades 12-50(65) cm long, 1-3 mm wide, flat to involute, abaxial surfaces glabrous, sometimes scabridulous, adaxial surfaces with scattered hairs basally, hairs to 7 mm. |
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. |
Panicles | 16-35(40) cm long, (4)8-24 cm wide, ovate to oblong, open; primary branches 3-14 cm, diverging 10-80° from the rachises; pulvini glabrous or not; pedicels 0.5-5 mm, appressed, flexible. |
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. |
Spikelets | 4-8.2(10) mm long, 1.2-2 mm wide, linear-lanceolate, plumbeous to yellowish, with 3-10 florets; disarticulation irregular to acropetal, proximal rachilla segments persistent. |
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. |
Glumes | lanceolate, hyaline; lower glumes 1.2-2.6 mm; upper glumes 2-3 mm; lemmas 1.8-3 mm, ovate, membranous, lateral veins conspicuous, apices acute; paleas 1.8-3 mm, hyaline to membranous, apices obtuse; anthers 3, 0.6-1.2 mm, reddish-brown. |
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. |
Caryopses | 1-1.7 mm, ellipsoid to obovoid, dorsally compressed, adaxial surfaces with a shallow, broad groove or ungrooved, smooth, mostly translucent, light brown, bases often greenish. |
0.4-0.6 mm, ellipsoid, somewhat laterally compressed, smooth, light reddish-brown. |
2n | = 40, 50. |
= 60. |
Eragrostis curvula |
Eragrostis reptans |
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Distribution |
AL; AR; AZ; CA; CO; DE; FL; GA; IL; KS; KY; LA; MA; MD; MO; MS; NC; NJ; NM; NY; OH; OK; OR; PA; SC; TN; TX; UT; VA; WA; WV; HI; PR
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Discussion | Eragrostis curvula is native to southern Africa. It is often used for reclamation because it provides good ground cover but, once introduced, it easily escapes. In the Flora region, it grows on rocky slopes, at the margins of woods, along roadsides, and in waste ground, at 20-2400 m, usually in pine-oak woodlands, and yellow pine and mixed hardwood forests. (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.) |
Source | FNA vol. 25, p. 76. | FNA vol. 25, p. 74. |
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Chloridoideae > tribe Cynodonteae > Eragrostis | Poaceae > subfam. Chloridoideae > tribe Cynodonteae > Eragrostis |
Sibling taxa | ||
Synonyms | E. curvula var. conferta, E. chloromelas | Neeragrostis reptans |
Name authority | (Schrad.) Nees | (Michx.) Nees |
Web links |
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