Eragrostis mexicana |
Eragrostis secundiflora |
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giant helleborine, Mexican love grass, Orcutt's lovegrass |
red lovegrass |
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Habit | Plants annual; cespitose, without innovations. | Plants perennial; cespitose, with innovations, without rhizomes, not glandular. | ||||
Culms | 10-130 cm, erect, sometimes geniculate, glabrous, sometimes with a ring of glandular depressions below the nodes. |
30-75 cm, erect, glabrous below. |
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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. |
mostly glabrous, hairy at the apices, hairs to 4 mm; ligules 0.2-0.3 mm; blades 10-25(40) cm long, 1-5 mm wide, involute, glabrous abaxially, scabridulous adaxially, sometimes also sparsely pilose. |
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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. |
(3)5-30 cm long, 1-15 cm wide, from narrowly oblong, glomerate, and interrupted below to ovate and open; primary branches 0.5-12(16) cm, appressed or diverging up to 40° from the rachises, stiff; pulvini glabrous or sparsely hairy; pedicels 0-1(3) mm, appressed, flattened. |
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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. |
6-16(23) cm long, 2.4-5 mm wide, ovate to linear-elliptic, flattened, stramineous, with reddish-purple margins or completely reddish-purple, with 10-45 florets; disarticulation basipetal, florets falling intact and before the glumes. |
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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. |
ovate-lanceolate to lanceolate, membranous; lower glumes 1.7-3 mm; upper glumes 2.2-4 mm, apices acuminate; lemmas 2-6 mm, ovate, membranous to leathery, apices usually acuminate or attenuate, sometimes acute; paleas 1.5-3 mm, membranous to leathery, narrower than the lemmas, apices obtuse, sometimes bifid; anthers 2, 0.2-0.5 mm, brownish. |
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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. |
0.8-1.3 mm, ellipsoid, somewhat laterally flattened, smooth, reddish-brown. |
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2n | = 60. |
= 40. |
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Eragrostis mexicana |
Eragrostis secundiflora |
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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; CA; CO; FL; GA; KS; LA; MO; MS; NC; NE; NM; OK; SC; TN; TX; VA
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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.) |
There are two subspecies of E. secundiflora; plants from the Flora region belong to E. secundiflora subsp. oxylepis (Torrey) S.D. Koch. They grow in sandy soils, dunes, grasslands, beaches, and roadsides of the southern United States and northern Mexico, at 0-1000 m. Eragrostis secundiflora J. Presl subsp. secundiflora grows in Mexico and Central and South America. (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. 99. | ||||
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Chloridoideae > tribe Cynodonteae > Eragrostis | Poaceae > subfam. Chloridoideae > tribe Cynodonteae > Eragrostis | ||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||
Name authority | (Hornem.) Link | J. Presl | ||||
Web links |
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