Digitaria pubiflora

(Vasey) Wipff
Common names: Western witchgrass
Treatment appears in FNA Volume 25. Treatment on page 362.

Plants perennial; cespitose, with or without rhizomes. Culms 20-70 cm, erect; nodes glabrous or pubescent. Leaves mainly cauline; sheaths glabrous or sparsely to densely pubescent, sometimes with papillose-based hairs; ligules 0.5-2.2 mm, entire to lacerate; blades 1.3-7.7 cm long, 1.5-4.7 mm wide, glabrous or sparsely to densely pubescent. Panicles simple, 4.5-20 cm long, 5.5-31 cm wide, open; branches divergent; lower primary branches 3.6-17.7 cm, often with 1-several sterile branches near the base; pedicels divergent, spikelets solitary. Spikelets 2.3-3.3 mm long, 0.6-1 mm wide, narrowly elliptic. Lower glumes 0.1-0.4 mm; upper glumes 1.8-2.9 mm, 3-veined, densely pubescent between the veins, hairs white, becoming purple at maturity; lower lemmas similar to the upper glumes in length, texture, and pubescence, 5-veined, veins equidistant; upper lemmas 1.9-2.6 mm, glabrous, dark brown, narrowly acute; anthers 0.3-0.5 mm, yellow, red, or purple. Caryopses 1.3-1.6 mm. 2n = (36), 72.

Distribution

Ariz., N.Mex., Okla., Colo., Tex.

Discussion

Digitaria pubiflora grows in dry, sandy or rocky soils from Arizona to central Texas and south to central Mexico.

Selected References

None.

Lower Taxa

None.