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Info
Subfamily: Panicoideae
Genus etymology: Eriochloa = "wooly grass" [Greek] refering to the pubescence on the pedicels and glumes
Species etymology: acuminata = "posseing a sharp point" [Latin] refering to the florets
Photosynthetic type: C4 (warm season)
Nativity: naturalized - accidental
First recorded in Hawaiʻi: 2000
Map
Inflorescence
image credit: J_Richard_AbbottSpikelets
image credit: Jon_P_Rebman
image credit: J_Richard_AbbottCollar
image credit: J_Richard_AbbottDescription
Plants annual; cespitose. Culms 30–120 cm, erect or decumbent, sometimes rooting at the lower nodes; internodes glabrous or with scattered hairs; nodes glabrous or pilose. Sheaths sometimes conspicuously inflated, glabrous or pubescent; ligules 0.2–1.2 mm; blades 5–12(18) cm long, (2)5–12(16) mm wide, linear, flat or folded, straight or lax, glabrous or sparsely pubescent adaxially. Panicles 7–16 cm long, 1–6 cm wide, loosely contracted; rachises scabrous or hairy; branches 5–20, 1–5 cm long, 0.4–0.6 mm wide, appressed to divergent, pubescent, sometimes setose, not winged, with 20–36 spikelets, spikelets mostly in unequally pedicellate pairs, solitary distally; pedicels 0.1–1 mm, hairy. Spikelets 3.8–5(6) mm long, 1.1–1.4 mm wide, lanceolate to ovate. Lower glumes absent; upper glumes equaling the lower lemmas, lanceolate to ovate, hairy, 5(7)-veined, acuminate to acute, unawned or awned, awns to 1.2 mm; lower lemmas 3.6–5 mm long, 1.1–1.4 mm wide, lanceolate to ovate, setose, 5(7)-veined, acuminate to acute, unawned; lower paleas absent; anthers absent; upper lemmas 2.3–3.3 mm, 0.7–0.9 times as long as the lower lemmas, indurate, elliptic, rounded, 5-veined, awned, the awns 0.1–0.3 mm; upper paleas indurate, blunt, rugose. 2n = 36.
(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/Eriochloa_acuminata_var._acuminata )