The green links below add additional plants to the comparison table. Blue links lead to other Web sites.
enable glossary links

coastal lovegrass

Habit Plants perennial; cespitose, with innovations, without rhizomes, not glandular.
Culms

30-85(110) cm, glabrous and shiny below the nodes.

Sheaths

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.

Panicles

(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.

Spikelets

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.

Glumes

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.

Caryopses

0.5-0.9 mm, ovoid to ellipsoid, finely striate, reddish-brown.

2n

= 28.

Eragrostis refracta

Distribution
from FNA
AL; AR; DE; FL; GA; LA; MD; MO; MS; NC; NJ; OK; SC; TX; VA
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

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.)

Source FNA vol. 25, p. 97.
Parent taxa Poaceae > subfam. Chloridoideae > tribe Cynodonteae > Eragrostis
Sibling taxa
E. airoides, E. amabilis, E. atrovirens, E. bahiensis, E. barrelieri, E. capillaris, E. cilianensis, E. ciliaris, E. cumingii, E. curtipedicellata, E. curvula, E. cylindriflora, E. echinochloidea, E. elliottii, E. elongata, E. erosa, E. frankii, E. gangetica, E. hirsuta, E. hypnoides, E. intermedia, E. japonica, E. lehmanniana, E. lugens, E. lutescens, E. mexicana, E. minor, E. obtusiflora, E. palmeri, E. pectinacea, E. pilosa, E. plana, E. polytricha, E. prolifera, E. reptans, E. scaligera, E. secundiflora, E. sessilispica, E. setifolia, E. silveana, E. spectabilis, E. spicata, E. superba, E. swallenii, E. tef, E. trichodes, E. trichophora, E. unioloides
Synonyms E. virginica, E. campestris
Name authority (Muhl.) Scribn.
Web links