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Info
Subfamily: Panicoideae
Genus etymology: Paspalum = "millet" [Greek] some species are used as cereals
Species etymology: malacophyllum = "leaves soft to the touch" [Greek] refering to soft hairs on the leaves
Photosynthetic type: C4 (warm season)
Nativity: naturalized - intentional
First recorded in Hawaiʻi: 1951
Map
Inflorescence
image credit: Cleveland_Powell
Plant
image credit: Cleveland_PowellDescription
Plants perennial; cespitose, sometimes with short rhizomes. Culms 90-200 cm, erect; nodes sunken, glabrous or pubescent, brown. Sheaths pubescent; ligules 4-5 mm, membranous, brown, acute; blades 12-40 cm long, 8-35 mm wide, flat or conduplicate, pubescent below, glabrous above, distinctly pubescent basally. Panicles terminal, with 8-25 racemosely arranged branches; branches 1-8 cm, divergent to erect; branch axes 1-1.2 mm wide, margins scabrous, terminating in a spikelet; pedicels 0.2-0.4 and 0.5-1.2 mm long, flattened, scabrous. Spikelets 1.8-2 mm, paired, appressed to or divergent from the branch axes, oblong-elliptic, white to stramineous. Glumes absent; lower lemmas glabrous, ribbed over the veins, sulcate between, 5-veined, margins entire; upper lemmas as long as the lower ones, longitudinally papillose-striate, glabrous, pale-colored. Upper florets white to stramineous. 2n = 40, 60.
(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/Paspalum_malacophyllum )