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Info
Subfamily: Chloridoideae
Genus etymology: Chloris = Goddess of vegetation [Greek], generally used to refer to a pale green color
Species etymology: truncata = "cut off" [Latin] refering to the lemmas being blunt as if they were cut off
Photosynthetic type: C4 (warm season)
Nativity: naturalized - accidental
First recorded in Hawaiʻi: 1904
Map
Inflorescence
image credit: Kym_Nicolson
image credit: Kym_Nicolson
image credit: Kym_NicolsonPlant
image credit: Kym_NicolsonSpikelets
image credit: Kym_NicolsonDescription
Plants perennial; stoloniferous. Culms 30-50 cm. Sheaths glabrous; ligules short-ciliate; blades 9-17 cm long, 0.2-0.3 mm wide, without basal hairs, glabrous, sometimes scabrous. Panicles digitate, with 5-13 clearly distinct branches; branches 5-23 cm, spikelet-bearing to the base or within 1 cm of the base, averaging 6 spikelets per cm elsewhere. Spikelets dark brown to black, with 1 bisexual and 1(2) staminate floret(s). Lower glumes 1.4-2.3 mm; upper glumes 2.8-4.2 mm; lowest lemmas 1.8-4.5 mm long, 0.2-0.7 mm wide, narrowly elliptic, becoming very dark, often almost black at maturity, sides not grooved, mostly glabrous but the margins appressed pubescent, sometimes sparsely so, hairs shorter than 1 mm, apices truncate, awned, awns 3.1-16 mm; second florets 1.3-3.5 mm long, 0.5-0.9 mm wide, not inflated, truncate, not or only minutely bilobed, awned, awns 3.1-12.5 mm; anthers about 0.6 mm. Caryopses 1.7-2.2 mm long, 0.3-0.5 mm wide, ellipsoid to narrowly obovate, trigonous. 2n = 40.
(Description source: Barkworth, M.E., Capels, K.M., Long, S. & Piep, M.B. (eds.) 2003. Flora of North America, north of Mexico. Volume 25. Magnoliophyta: Commelinidae (in part): Poaceae, Part 2. Oxford University Press, New York. 783 pp. http://floranorthamerica.org/Chloris_truncata )