Eragrostis hirsuta
Plants perennial; cespitose, with innovations and hardened bases, without rhizomes, not glandular. Culms (30)45-100 cm, erect, glabrous below the nodes. Sheaths rarely glabrous, apices and distal margins usually hairy, sometimes also densely hairy basally, dorsally, and on the collars, hairs to 6 mm, papillose-based; ligules 0.2-0.4 mm; blades 25-60 cm long, 3-8(11) mm wide, flat to loosely involute, usually glabrous, adaxial surfaces sometimes hairy basally. Panicles 25-85 cm long, 15-40 cm wide, broadly ovate, open; primary branches mostly 4-35(45) cm, diverging 20-90° from the rachises, capillary; pulvini glabrous or hairy; pedicels 2-28 mm, divergent. Spikelets 2-4(5) mm long, 1-1.7 mm wide, lanceolate, greenish with purplish tinges, with 2-6 florets; disarticulation acropetal, paleas persistent. Glumes lanceolate, hyaline to membranous; lower glumes 1.1-2 mm; upper glumes 1.5-2.8 mm, apices acuminate to acute; lemmas 1.6-2.4 mm, ovate, membranous, hyaline near the margins, lateral veins inconspicuous, apices acute; paleas 1.2-2.2 mm, hyaline, bases not projecting beyond the lemmas, apices acute to obtuse; anthers 3, 0.3-0.8 mm, purplish. Caryopses 0.8-1 mm, rectangular-prismatic, somewhat laterally compressed, with or without a well-developed adaxial groove, striate, opaque, reddish-brown. 2n = 100.
Distribution
Md., N.J., Mass., Miss., Tex., La., W.Va., Mo., Del., Ala., Tenn., N.C., S.C., Va., Ark., Ill., Ga., Okla., Ky., Fla., Ohio
Discussion
Eragrostis hirsuta grows in sandy clay loams on the coastal plain and along roadsides, at 0-150 m, usually in association with Pinus palustris and Quercus. Its range extends from the southeastern United States through eastern Mexico to Guatemala and Belize.
Selected References
None.