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Info
Subfamily: Pooideae
Genus etymology: Polypogon = "several beard" [Greek] refering to the bristly glumes
Species etymology: fugax = "ephemeral" [Latin] refering to its annual habit
Photosynthetic type: C3 (cool season)
Nativity: naturalized - accidental
First recorded in Hawaiʻi: 1838
Map
Inflorescence
Plant
Habit
Spikelets
Description
Plants annual. Culms (8.5) 15-60 cm, often decumbent at the base and rooting at the nodes. Sheaths smooth; ligules 2-8 mm; blades 2-16 cm long, 2-11 mm wide, scabrous. Panicles 3-15 cm long, 0.5-5 cm wide, narrowly ovoid, oblong, or cylindrical, dense, usually lobed, pale green or yellowish; pedicels absent or to 0.5 mm; stipes 0.2-1.3 mm. Glumes 1.8-2.4 mm, equal to subequal, scabridulous to echinate, not tapering to the apices, apices acute to rounded, lobed, lobes 0.1-0.2 mm, awned from the sinuses, awns 0.6-3 mm, those of the lower and upper glumes subequal to equal, flexuous; lemmas 0.9-1.2 mm, smooth, unawned or awned, awns to 2 mm, flexuous; paleas 0.7-1.2 mm, from 3/4 as long as to equaling the lemmas; anthers 0.3-0.6 mm. 2n = 42.
(Description source: Barkworth, M.E., Capels, K.M. & Long, S. (eds.) 1993. Flora of North America, north of Mexico. Volume 24. Magnoliophyta: Commelinidae (in part): Poaceae, Part 1. Oxford University Press, New York. 911 pp. http://floranorthamerica.org/Polypogon_fugax )
Perennials; culms tufted, 0.5-6(-9) dm tall, sometimes decumbent at base and rooting at nodes. Sheaths smooth to scaberulous, margins overlapping, thin; ligule translucent, firm, (1.5-)3-7(-9.5) mm long, nerved, puberulent, margins entire to lacerate, apex narrowed, obtuse, or truncate; blades flat, 2-5(-9) mm wide, scabrous. Panicles 2-9(-15) cm long, interrupted, branches erect; glumes subequal, 1.7-2.5 mm long, keeled, hispidulous, apex narrowed abruptly into a terminal awn, sometimes minutely bifid, the awn (1-)1.5-3(-5) mm long; lemma narrowly lanceolate, (0.7-)1-1.5 mm long, smooth, glossy, apex minutely bifid, awned from near apex, the awn ca. 3 mm long; palea similar and nearly as long as lemma. Caryopsis pale brown, narrowly ovoid, 0.6-0.8 mm long. [2n = 28, 42.]
(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 )