| Monocotyledon | Literature for Paspalum conjugatum
Wagner et al., 1990, 1999; Lorence & Wagner, 2019. |
| Poaceae -- The Grass Family | Bibliography |
| Paspalum conjugatum | |
Common name(s): hilo grass, mau`u Hilo, sour paspalum |
| General Information | ||
|---|---|---|
| Distribution | Native to the Neotropics, widely naturalized.In the Hawaiian Islands, naturalized on Kaua`i, O`ahu, Moloka`i, Lana`i, Maui, Hawai`i. | |
| Habit |
Perennial with extensive, leafy, wiry
stolons; culms often reddish purple, erect from slightly decumbent base, 3‒6 dm tall, simple or with 1‒2 branches, glabrous, compressed, conspicuously pilose at nodes. |
|
| Leaves |
Leaves with sheath 2‒6 cm long,
compressed, usually pilose at throat and along margin near top, but otherwise glabrous; ligule a delicate membrane 0.5‒1 mm long, with a dense line of hairs 1‒2 mm long; blade green to yellowish green, flat, thin, chartaceous, 6‒14 cm long, 5‒15 mm
wide, scabrous-ciliate, apex acute. |
|
| Flowers |
Inflorescences composed of 2(3) racemes, subopposite, widely spreading at apex of flowering culms, slender, 6‒10 cm long, rachis ca. 1 mm wide, straight or flexuous toward apex, glossy, flat and glabrous on adaxial
side, triangular and somewhat grooved on abaxial side, pedicel minute, geniculate. Spikelets pale yellow, loosely imbricate in 1 row on each side of scabrous-ciliate central ridge of rachis, broadly ovate, compressed, adaxial side convex, abaxial side
slightly concave, 1.5‒1.8 mm long, apex apiculate, caducous; first glume absent, second glume concolorous, ciliate with long lax hair, otherwise glabrous, 2-veined or 4-veined; first lemma glabrous, similar to second lemma, thin, membranous, with 2 green submarginal veins; second lemma coriaceous, slightly convex, as long
as spikelet, glabrous; palea flat to slightly concave, 2-veined. |
|
| Fruit |
Caryopses whitish, broadly ovate, plano-convex, ca. 1 mm long and wide, compressed. |
|
| Contributor |
Nancy Khan |
