Eragrostis mexicana |
Eragrostis pectinacea |
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giant helleborine, Mexican love grass, Orcutt's lovegrass |
eragrostide pecttnee, tuft love grass |
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Habit | Plants annual; cespitose, without innovations. | Plants annual; tufted, without innovations, without glandular pits. | ||||||||||||
Culms | 10-130 cm, erect, sometimes geniculate, glabrous, sometimes with a ring of glandular depressions below the nodes. |
10-80 cm, erect to geniculate or decumbent below, glabrous. |
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Sheaths | sometimes with glandular pits, pilose near the apices and on the collars, hairs to 4 mm, papillose-based; ligules 0.2-0.5 mm, ciliate; blades 5-25 cm long, 2-7(9) mm wide, flat, abaxial surfaces glabrous, adaxial surfaces scabridulous, occasionally pubescent near the base. |
hirsute at the apices, hairs to 4 mm; ligules 0.2-0.5 mm; blades 2-20 cm long, 1-4.5 mm wide, flat to involute, abaxial surfaces glabrous and smooth, adaxial surfaces scabridulous. |
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Panicles | (5)10-40 cm long, (2)4-18 cm wide, ovate, rachises angled and channeled; primary branches 3-12(15) cm, solitary to whorled, appressed or diverging to 80° from the rachises; secondary branches somewhat appressed; pulvini glabrous; pedicels 1-6(7) mm, almost appressed to narrowly divergent, stiff. |
5-25 cm long, 3-12(15) cm wide, ovoid to pyramidal, usually open, sometimes contracted; primary branches 0.6-8.5 cm, appressed or diverging to 80° from the rachises, solitary or paired at the lowest 2 nodes; pulvini glabrous or sparsely hairy; pedicels 1-7 mm, flexible, appressed to widely divergent, sometimes capillary. |
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Spikelets | (4)5-10(11) mm long, 0.7-2.4 mm wide, ovate to linear-lanceolate, gray-green to purplish, with 5-11(15) florets; disarticulation acropetal. |
3.5-11 mm long, 1.2-2.5 mm wide, linear-oblong to narrowly lanceolate, plumbeous, yellowish-brown, or dark reddish-purple, with 6-22 florets; disarticulation acropetal, paleas persistent. |
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Glumes | subequal, 0.7-2(2.3) mm, ovate to lanceolate, membranous; lemmas 1.2-2.4 mm, ovate, membranous, glabrous or with a few hairs, gray-green, lateral veins evident, often greenish, apices acute; paleas 1-2.2 mm, hyaline, keels scabrous, apices obtuse to truncate; anthers 3, 0.2-0.5 mm, purplish. |
subulate to ovate-lanceolate, hyaline; lower glumes 0.5-1.5 mm, at least 1/2 as long as the adjacent lemmas; upper glumes 1-1.7 mm, usually broader than the lower glumes; lemmas 1-2.2 mm, ovate-lanceolate, hyaline to membranous, grayish-green proximally, reddish-purple distally, lateral veins moderately conspicuous, apices acute; paleas 1-2 mm, hyaline to membranous, keels scabridulous, apices obtuse; anthers 3, 0.2-0.7 mm, purplish. |
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Caryopses | 0.5-0.8(1) mm, ovoid to rectangular-prismatic, laterally compressed, shallowly to deeply grooved on the adaxial surface, striate, reddish-brown, distal 2/3 opaque. |
0.5-1.1 mm, pyriform, slightly laterally compressed, smooth, faintly striate, brownish. |
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2n | = 60. |
= 60. |
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Eragrostis mexicana |
Eragrostis pectinacea |
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Distribution |
AZ; CA; CO; DE; FL; IA; ID; IL; IN; MA; MD; ME; ND; NM; NV; OR; SC; TX; UT; WA; WI; BC; ON
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AL; AR; AZ; CA; CO; CT; DC; DE; FL; GA; IA; ID; IL; IN; KS; KY; LA; MA; MD; ME; MI; MN; MO; MS; MT; NC; ND; NE; NH; NJ; NM; NV; NY; OH; OK; OR; PA; RI; SC; SD; TN; TX; UT; VA; VT; WA; WI; WV; WY; HI; PR; BC; NB; NS; ON; QC; Virgin Islands
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Discussion | Eragrostis mexicana grows along roadsides, near cultivated fields, and in disturbed open areas, at 100-3000 m. It is native to the Americas, its native range extending from the southwestern United States through Mexico, Central and northern South America, to Argentina. Within the Flora region, it has been introduced beyond its native range, often becoming an established part of the flora. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Eragrostis pectinacea is native from southern Canada to Argentina. In the Flora region, it grows in disturbed sites such as roadsides, railroad embankments, gardens, and cultivated fields, at 0-1200 m. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 25, p. 78. | FNA vol. 25, p. 81. | ||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Chloridoideae > tribe Cynodonteae > Eragrostis | Poaceae > subfam. Chloridoideae > tribe Cynodonteae > Eragrostis | ||||||||||||
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Name authority | (Hornem.) Link | (Michx.) Nees | ||||||||||||
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