Eragrostis mexicana |
Eragrostis plana |
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giant helleborine, Mexican love grass, Orcutt's lovegrass |
south African lovegrass |
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Habit | Plants annual; cespitose, without innovations. | Plants perennial; cespitose, with innovations, without rhizomes. | ||||
Culms | 10-130 cm, erect, sometimes geniculate, glabrous, sometimes with a ring of glandular depressions below the nodes. |
65-100 cm, erect, 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. |
flattened, smooth, shiny, glabrous or puberulent; ligules 0.2-0.4 mm; blades 15-50(70) cm long, 2-4 mm wide, folded, margins involute or revolute, abaxial surfaces glabrous or sparsely hairy, 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. |
13-28 cm long, 2-8 cm wide, narrowly oblong to narrowly lanceolate, contracted to open; primary branches 1-8 cm, appressed or diverging up to 30° from the rachises; pulvini glabrous or hairy; pedicels 1-7 mm, appressed, 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. |
6-14 mm long, 1.3-2.5 mm wide, linear-oblong, greenish to plumbeous, with 9-14 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. |
narrowly ovate to lanceolate, membranous to hyaline; lower glumes 0.4-1.2 mm, scalelike; upper glumes 1-1.5 mm; lemmas 1.8-3 mm, ovate, membranous, strongly keeled, keels with minute punctate glands, lateral veins conspicuous, apices acute to obtuse; paleas 1.8-3 mm, hyaline to membranous, bases not projecting beyond the lemmas, apices obtuse to truncate; anthers 3, 1.2-1.8 mm, reddish-purple. |
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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. |
1-1.6 mm, rectangular-prismatic to ovoid, laterally compressed, adaxial surfaces deeply grooved, smooth, opaque, reddish-brown. |
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2n | = 60. |
= 20. |
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Eragrostis mexicana |
Eragrostis plana |
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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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SC |
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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 plana is native to southern Africa. It is known from two locations in the Flora region, both waste areas near sheep and cattle lots in Florence County, South Carolina. (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. 91. | ||||
Parent taxa | ||||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||
Name authority | (Hornem.) Link | Nees | ||||
Web links |
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