Digitaria eriantha Steud. |
Common name
Pangola Grass
Digit Grass
Woolly Finger Grass
Derivation
Digitaria Haller, Hist. Stirp. Helv. 2: 244 (1768). From the Latin
digitus (finger), alluding to radiating inflorescence branches.
eriantha- from the Greek erion (wool) and anthos (flower). With woolly glumes, lemmas or awns.
Published in
Allg. Bot. Z. Syst. 12: 468 (1829).
Common synonyms
Digitaria pentzii Stent
Digitaria decumbens Stent
Habit Perennial, tufted. Cataphylls present. Stolons absent or present. Basal leaf sheaths sparsely hairy, persistent and investing base of culm, with compacted dead sheaths. Culms erect or geniculately ascending or decumbent, 40120 cm tall, 57-noded. Mid-culm internodes glabrous. Mid-culm nodes brown, glabrous or pubescent. Leaf-sheaths scaberulous, glabrous on surface or pilose, with tubercle-based hairs. Leaf-sheath auricles absent. Ligule a fringed membrane, 24 mm long. Leaf-blades flat or involute, 520 cm long, 24(7) mm wide. Leaf-blade surface scaberulous or scabrous, glabrous. Leaf-blade margins scabrous.
Inflorescence
Inflorescence digitate, with racemose branches. Racemes 310, in several
whorls, erect, unilateral, 520 cm long. Rhachis narrowly winged, angular,
0.5 mm wide, smooth or scabrous on surface, scabrous on margins. Spikelet packing
imbricate.
Spikelets
Spikelets in pairs. Pedicels terete or angular, unequal, 0.53 mm long,
scabrous, tip widened. Fertile spikelets 2-flowered, comprising 1 fertile floret,
lower floret sterile, upper fertile, without rhachilla extension, oblong, dorsally
compressed, 2.23.5 mm long, falling entire. Rhachilla internodes brief
up to lowest fertile floret.
Glumes
Glumes dissimilar, thinner than fertile lemma. Lower glume ovate, 0.20.5
mm long, 10% of length of spikelet, membranous, 0-nerved. Lower glume margins
ciliate. Lower glume apex acute or acuminate. Upper glume oblong, dorsally convex
in profile, 0.92 mm long, 5066% of length of spikelet, membranous,
35-nerved. Upper glume surface pubescent. Upper glume apex acute.
Florets
Basal sterile floret 1, without significant palea. Lemma of lower sterile floret
oblong, 33.2 mm long, 100% of length of spikelet, membranous, 57-nerved,
with nerves free at apex, smooth, pubescent or pubescent and setose, ciliate
on margins, acute. Fertile lemma oblong, 23 mm long, cartilaginous, much
thinner on margins, yellow or light brown. Lemma surface striate. Lemma margins
flat, covering most of palea. Lemma apex acute or apiculate. Palea cartilaginous.
Continental Distribution:
Africa, Australasia, Pacific, South America.
Australian Distribution:
Queensland: Cook, North Kennedy, South Kennedy, Port Curtis, Leichhardt,
Burnett, Wide Bay, Darling Downs, Moreton.
Classification. (GPWG
2001):
Panicoideae: Paniceae
Notes
Introduced. Flowers Dec.
Inflorescence (photo)
© Queensland Herbarium
Sharp 15 and Simon
by D.Sharp