✕
Info
Subfamily: Panicoideae
Genus etymology: Paspalum = "millet" [Greek] some species are used as cereals
Species etymology: plicatulum = "folded lengthwise" [Latin] likely refering to the lemma
Photosynthetic type: C4 (warm season)
Nativity: naturalized - intentional
First recorded in Hawaiʻi: 2000
Map
Inflorescence
Habit
Spikelets
Collar
Description
Plants perennial; shortly rhizomatous, often indistinctly so. Culms 30–110 cm, stout, erect; nodes glabrous. Sheaths glabrous; ligules 2–3 mm; blades to 35 cm long, 2–5.4 mm wide, conduplicate (rarely flat). Panicles terminal, with 2–7 racemosely arranged branches; branches 1.6–7.1 cm, usually divergent, rarely merely ascending; branch axes 0.6–1.1 mm wide, glabrous, terminating in a spikelet. Spikelets 2.5–3 mm long, 1.5–2.2 mm wide, paired, appressed to the branch axes, elliptic-ovate, light to dark brown. Lower glumes absent; upper glumes usually with short, appressed pubescence, rarely glabrous, 5-veined, margins entire; lower lemmas with short, appressed pubescence or glabrous, 3- veined, margins entire; upper florets dark glossy brown. Caryopses 1.4–1.6 mm, brown. 2n = 20, 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_plicatulum )