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Info
Subfamily: Panicoideae
Genus etymology: Heteropogon = "different beard" [Greek] refering to the spikelets with or without awns
Species etymology: contortus = "twisted" [Latin] refering to the awns which twist together
Photosynthetic type: C4 (warm season)
Nativity: indigenous
Map
Inflorescence
Plant
Habit
Spikelets
Culm base
Description
Perennials; culms tufted, erect, 4-10 dm tall, compressed, glabrous, often glaucous. Sheaths 6-10 cm long, compressed, keeled, glabrous or sparsely hispid at throat, usually glaucous; ligule a ciliate membrane ca. 1 mm long; blades pale bluish green, firm, flat to slightly involute, 10-30 cm long, 3-7 mm wide, striate, scabrous. Racemes solitary at apex of flowering culm, secund, often slightly nodding, 4-7 cm long, the slender rachis continuous in the lower part, bearing pairs of staminate spikelets, the remainder disarticulating obliquely at base of each joint, the joint forming a sharp barbed callus below the fertile spikelet, the pedicellate spikelet readily falling; upper sessile spikelet ca. 7 mm long, slender, awns 5-12 cm long, bent, flexuous, often tangled, appressed pilose in lower part, scabrous toward apex; lower sessile spikelet and pedicellate spikelet ca. 10 mm long, first glume firm, asymmetrical, papillose-hispid near margins and the acuminate apex, overlapping and nearly concealing the sessile spikelets. [2n = 20, 39-44, 50, 60, ca. 69- 80, 90.]
(Description source: O’Connor, P.J. 1990. Poaceae, pp. 1481–1604. In: Wagner W.L., Herbst D.R. & Sohmer S.H. (eds.)., Manual of the flowering plant of Hawaiʻi. Vol. 2. University of Hawaii Press & Bishop Museum Press, Honolulu )