| Monocotyledon | Literature for Axonopus fissifolius
Barkworth, 2003; Wagner et al., 1990, 1999; Lorence & Wagner, 2019. |
| Poaceae -- The Grass Family | Bibliography |
| Axonopus fissifolius | |
Common name(s): carpetgrass, narrow-leaved carpetgrass |
| General Information | ||
|---|---|---|
| Distribution | Native in the SE United States and from central Mexico south to Bolivia and Argentina, commonly used as a pasture grass, now widely naturalized in the tropics and subtropics.In the Hawaiian Islands, naturalized on Kaua`i, O`ahu, Moloka`i, Lana`i, Maui, Hawai`i. | |
| Habit |
Perennial, usually cespitose; culms
10‒75 cm tall, erect or depressed-decumbent, sometimes stoloniferous, nodes of the stolons often pilose, internodes to 2 mm in diameter, pithy, glabrous, nodes glabrous or slightly pubescent. |
|
| Leaves |
Leaves with sheath compressed, glabrous, margins ciliate; ligule a truncate, ciliolate fringed membrane 0.2‒0.5 mm; blade 4‒15 cm long, 3‒6 mm wide, flat or folded, mostly glabrous, margin with papillose-based cilia near base, otherwise glabrous, apex obtuse. |
|
| Flowers |
Inflorescences 5‒11 cm long, composed of 2‒7 divergent racemes on a short common rachis, racemes slender, 3.5‒5 cm long, rachis trigonous, ca. 0.5 mm in diameter, scabrous on angles, peduncle exserted to 16 cm from terminal sheath. Spikelets subsessile, imbricate, elliptic-obovate, 2.3‒2.8
mm long, acute, pedicel less than 0.2 mm long, sparsely pubescent on margin of glume and sterile lemma and at apex; second glume and first (sterile) lemma equal, 2-veined, veins submarginal; fertile floret pale yellowish brown. |
|
| Fruit |
Caryopses 1.5‒1.8 mm long, compressed ellipsoid to lenticular, tan to pale brown or gray.
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| Chromosomes |
2n = 20, 40, 80, 100 |
|
| Contributor |
David Lorence & W. L. Wagner |
