Paspalum malacophyllum |
Paspalum minus |
|
---|---|---|
rib paspalum |
Matted paspalum |
|
Habit | Plants perennial; cespitose, sometimes with short rhizomes. | Plants perennial; shortly rhizomatous. |
Culms | 90-200 cm, erect; nodes sunken, glabrous or pubescent, brown. |
3-60 cm, erect; nodes glabrous. |
Sheaths | pubescent; ligules 4-5 mm, membranous, brown, acute; blades 12-40 cm long, 8-35 mm wide, flat or conduplicate, pubescent below, glabrous above, distinctly pubescent basally. |
glabrous or pubescent; ligules 0.2-0.7 mm; blades 8-18 cm long, 2-7.1 mm wide, flat, glabrous or pubescent. |
Panicles | terminal, with 8-25 racemosely arranged branches; branches 1-8 cm, divergent to erect; branch axes 1-1.2 mm wide, margins scabrous, terminating in a spikelet; pedicels 0.2-0.4 and 0.5-1.2 mm long, flattened, scabrous. |
terminal, usually composed of a digitate pair of branches, a third branch sometimes present below the terminal pair; branches 1.8-6.4 cm, diverging to erect; branch axes 0.5-1.3 mm wide, narrowly winged, glabrous, margins scabrous, terminating in a spikelet. |
Spikelets | 1.8-2 mm, paired, appressed to or divergent from the branch axes, oblong-elliptic, white to stramineous. |
1.9-2.3 mm long, 1.2-2 mm wide, solitary, appressed to the branch axes, broadly elliptic to ovate to obovate, glabrous, stramineous, apices obtuse. |
Glumes | absent; lower lemmas glabrous, ribbed over the veins, sulcate between, 5-veined, margins entire; upper lemmas as long as the lower ones, longitudinally papillose-striate, glabrous, pale-colored. |
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Lower glumes | absent; upper glumes 3-veined, lower lemmas faintly 3-veined; upper florets stramineous. |
|
Caryopses | 1.8-2.2 mm, white. |
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Upper | florets white to stramineous. |
|
2n | = 40, 60. |
= 20, 40, 50. |
Paspalum malacophyllum |
Paspalum minus |
|
Distribution |
FL; GA; TX |
AL; FL; LA; MS; TX; PR |
Discussion | Paspalum malacophyllum is native from Mexico to Bolivia and Argentina. It was introduced to the southern United States for forage and soil conservation, and is now established in the southeastern United States, growing in disturbed sites at scattered locations. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Paspalum minus grows in disturbed areas and on the edges of forests. It grows from southern Texas to Florida in the Flora region; outside the region, it extends through Mexico and the West Indies to Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, and Paraguay. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 25, p. 584. | FNA vol. 25, p. 577. |
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Panicoideae > tribe Paniceae > Paspalum | Poaceae > subfam. Panicoideae > tribe Paniceae > Paspalum |
Sibling taxa | ||
Name authority | Trin. | E. Fourn. |
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