✕
Info
Subfamily: Panicoideae
Genus etymology:
Species etymology: antidotale = "pertaining to a antidote" [Latin] refering to smoke from this being used to prevent against smallpox and for cleaning wounds (at least in Sri Lanka)
Photosynthetic type: C4 (warm season)
Nativity: naturalized - intentional
First recorded in Hawaiʻi: 1966
Map
Inflorescence
Habit
Spikelets
Landscape
Description
Plants perennial; cespitose, rhizomatous, rhizomes about 1 cm thick, knotted, pubescent, with large, scalelike leaves. Culms 50-300 cm tall, 2-4 mm thick, often compressed, erect or ascending, hard, becoming almost woody; nodes swollen, glabrous or pubescent; internodes glabrous, glaucous. Sheaths not keeled, shorter than or equal to the internodes, glabrous or the lower sheaths at least partially pubescent, hairs papillose-based; ligules 0.3-1.5 mm; blades 10-60 cm long, 3-20 mm wide, elongate, flat, abaxial surfaces and margins scabrous, adaxial surfaces occasionally pubescent near the base, with prominent, white midveins, bases rounded to narrowed. Panicles 10-45 cm, to 1/2 as wide as long, open or somewhat contracted, with many spikelets; branches 4-12 cm, opposite or alternate, ascending to spreading; pedicels 0.3-2.5 mm, scabridulous to scabrous, appressed to diverging less than 45° from the branch axes. Spikelets 2.4-3.4 mm long, 1-1.3 mm wide, ellipsoid-lanceoloid to narrowly ovoid, often purplish, glabrous, acute. Lower glumes 1.4-2.2 mm, 1/3 – 1/2 as long as the spikelets, 3-5-veined, obtuse; upper glumes and lower lemmas subequal, glabrous, 5-9-veined, margins scarious, acute; lower florets staminate; upper florets 1.8-2.8 mm long, 0.9-1.1 mm wide, smooth, lustrous, acute. 2n = 18, 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/Panicum_antidotale )
Rhizomatous perennials 50-200 cm tall; culms often branched. Ligule a ciliate membrane, 0.5-1 mm long; blades 10-50 cm long, 0.4-2 cm wide, flat, glabrous. Panicles 10-45 cm long; spikelets 2.6-3.5 mm long, ovoid, acute, glabrous, the margins of the glumes and first lemma hyaline; first glume 1.4-1.9 mm long, 1/2-2/3 as long as spikelet, acute, 5-nerved, second glume 5- 7-nerved, first floret staminate, first lemma 5-7-nerved; first palea as long as first lemma; second floret 2.3-2.8 mm long, acute, glossy, smooth; anthers 1.7-2 mm long. [2n = 18, 36.]
(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 )