Eragrostis mexicana |
Eragrostis unioloides |
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giant helleborine, Mexican love grass, Orcutt's lovegrass |
Chinese lovegrass |
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Habit | Plants annual; cespitose, without innovations. | Plants annual; tufted, without innovations, without glands. | ||||
Culms | 10-130 cm, erect, sometimes geniculate, glabrous, sometimes with a ring of glandular depressions below the nodes. |
10-50 cm, erect, glabrous below the nodes. |
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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. |
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Leaves | mostly basal; sheaths mostly glabrous, apices pilose, hairs 0.4-3 mm; ligules 0.1-0.2 mm, ciliate; blades (1.8)5-12 cm long, 2-6 mm wide, flat to involute, abaxial surfaces glabrous, adaxial surfaces scabridulous and glabrous or sparsely hairy, hairs appressed. |
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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. |
6-15 cm long, 0.5-7 cm wide, ovate, open to contracted; primary branches 0.2-5 cm, appressed or diverging up to 70° from the rachises, glabrous; pulvini glabrous; pedicels 2-8 mm, glabrous. |
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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. |
4-8(10) mm long, (1.6)2-4 mm wide, ovate-lanceolate, loosely imbricate, straw-colored to purplish, with 12-42 florets; disarticulation acropetal, paleas not persistent, rachillas 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. |
ovate-lanceolate to lanceolate, hyaline to membranous; lower glumes 1-1.8 mm; upper glumes 1-2.2 mm; lemmas 1.5-1.9 mm, broadly ovate, membranous, lateral veins raised, apices obtuse to acute; paleas 1.4-1.9 mm, hyaline, keels scabridulous, apices acute to obtuse; anthers 2, 0.2-0.4 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. |
0.6-0.9 mm, ellipsoid, laterally compressed, not grooved, smooth, light brown. |
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2n | = 60. |
= 20, ca. 30. |
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Eragrostis mexicana |
Eragrostis unioloides |
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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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FL; GA; MD; HI |
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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 unioloides is an Asian species that is now established in the southeastern United States, growing along roadsides and in disturbed ground, at 20-150 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. 85. | ||||
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Chloridoideae > tribe Cynodonteae > Eragrostis | Poaceae > subfam. Chloridoideae > tribe Cynodonteae > Eragrostis | ||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||
Name authority | (Hornem.) Link | (Retz.) Nees ex Steud. | ||||
Web links |
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