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Info
Subfamily: Panicoideae
Genus etymology: Eriochloa = "wooly grass" [Greek] refering to the pubescence on the pedicels and glumes
Species etymology: punctata = "possing a prick" [Latin] refering to the reduced lower glume resembling a pin prick
Photosynthetic type: C4 (warm season)
Nativity: naturalized - intentional
First recorded in Hawaiʻi: 1937
Map
Inflorescence
image credit: gracieladangelo
image credit: gracieladangeloPlant
image credit: gracieladangeloDescription
Plants perennial; rhizomatous, often flowering the first year and, resembling an annual. Culms 30-150 cm, erect or decumbent, not rooting at the lower nodes; internodes glabrous; nodes 3-10, glabrate. Sheaths occasionally inflated, glabrous (rarely puberulent), often purplish at maturity; ligules 0.4-1 mm; blades 10-50 cm long, (2)4-10(13) mm wide, linear, flat, straight, spreading, glabrous (rarely puberulent) on both surfaces. Panicles 9-22 cm long, 1-10 cm wide, contracted, rarely open; rachises scabrous to densely pubescent; branches (4)8-20(27), 1-6 cm long, 0.3-0.5 mm wide, appressed or divergent, glabrous, not winged, with 28-60 spikelets, spikelets mostly in unequally pedicellate pairs, solitary distally; pedicels 0.1-0.7 mm, uniformly pubescent, hairs about 0.1 mm. Spikelets (4)4.5-5.7 mm long, 0.9-1.4 mm wide. Upper glumes equaling the lower lemmas, lanceolate, sparsely appressed pilose, 5-7-veined, acuminate, sometimes mucronate, mucro shorter than 0.5 mm; lower lemmas 4.3-5.5 mm long, 0.9-1.4 mm wide, lanceolate, setose, 5-7-veined, acuminate, unawned or mucronate; lower paleas absent; anthers absent; upper lemmas 2-3.5 mm (excluding the awn), 0.4-0.6 times as long as the lower lemmas, indurate, elliptic, 5-veined, rounded, awned, awns 0.6-1.5 mm; upper paleas 0.5-1.2 mm, indurate, blunt. 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_punctata )