Eragrostis mexicana
Eragrostis refracta
giant helleborine, Mexican love grass, Orcutt's lovegrass
coastal lovegrass
10-130 cm, erect, sometimes geniculate, glabrous, sometimes with a ring of glandular depressions below the nodes.
30-85(110) cm, glabrous and shiny below the nodes.
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.
sparsely hairy at the apices, hairs to 6 mm;
ligules 0.1-0.4 mm;
blades 10-35 cm long, 2-5 mm wide, flat to involute, glabrous abaxially, scabridulous and sparsely pilose adaxially, hairs to 7 mm.
(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.
(25)30-60 cm long, 25-40 cm wide, broadly ovate to obovate, open, diffuse;
primary branches 5-25 cm, diverging 20-90° from the rachises, capillary;
pulvini hairy or glabrous;
pedicels 0.5-25 mm, appressed, only the terminal pedicels on each branch longer than the 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.
4-18(23) mm long, 1.4-3.4 mm wide, linear-lanceolate, grayish-green or stramineous to purplish, with (4)9-30 florets;
disarticulation tardy, basipetal, in the rachillas below the florets, glumes persistent.
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.
narrowly lanceolate, membranous;
lower glumes 0.8-2.4 mm;
upper glumes 1.5-2.6 mm;
lemmas 1.4-2.8 mm, lanceolate, membranous, apices acute to acuminate;
paleas 1-2.6 mm, hyaline to membranous, narrower than the lemmas, apices obtuse to acute;
anthers 2, 0.3-0.5 mm, purplish or brownish.
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.
0.5-0.9 mm, ovoid to ellipsoid, finely striate, reddish-brown.
= 60.
= 28.
Eragrostis mexicana
Eragrostis refracta
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 refracta grows in sandy pinelands, savannahs, marshes, and woodlands on the coastal plain of the southeastern United States, at 0-150 m. It is not known from Mexico.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
1. Spikelets ovate to oblong in outline, 1.5-2.4mm wide; lower glumes 1.2-2.3 mm long; sum of the spikelet width and lower glume length 2.7-4.7 mm; culms and sheaths sometimes with glandular depressions | subsp. mexicana |
1. Spikelets linear to linear-lanceolate, 0.7-1.4 wide; lower glumes 0.7-1.7 mm long; sum of the spikelet width and lower glume length 1.5-3.1 mm; culms and sheaths without glandular depressions | subsp. virescens |
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