| Monocotyledon | Literature for Urochloa mutica
Wipff & Thompson, 2003; Lorence & Wagner, 2019. |
| Poaceae -- The Grass Family | Bibliography |
| Urochloa mutica | |
Common name(s): California grass, Para grass |
| General Information | ||
|---|---|---|
| Distribution | An African species grown as a forage crop throughout the tropics, but tending to become weedy.In the Hawaiian Islands, naturalized on Midway, Kaua`i, O`ahu, Moloka`i, Lana`i, Maui, Hawai`i. | |
| Habit |
Perennial; stoloniferous, straggling;
culms to 200(‒300) cm long, long-decumbent and rooting at the proximal
nodes, vertical portion 90‒200(‒300) cm;
nodes villous. |
|
| Leaves |
Leaves with open sheath, lower sheaths with papillose-based hairs, these more dense distally, margin ciliate;
collar pubescent; ligule 1‒1.5 mm; blade 7.5‒35 cm long, 4‒20 mm wide, glabrous or sparsely pilose on both surfaces, margin scabrous. |
|
| Flowers |
Inflorescences a panicle, 10‒25 cm long, 5‒10 cm wide, pyramidal, with 10‒30 racemes in more than 2 ranks; primary branches 2.5‒8 cm long, 0.4‒0.9 mm wide, ascending to divergent,
axils pubescent, axes flat, glabrous or
with a few papillose-based hairs, secondary branches present or absent; pedicel shorter than the spikelet, scabrous, sometimes with hairs. Spikelets 2.6‒3.5 mm long, 1‒1.4 mm wide, mostly in pairs, in 2‒4 rows, appressed to branches, purplish
to green; glumes scarcely separate, rachilla internodes short not pronounced, proximal glumes 0.6‒1.1 mm, 1/5‒⅓ as long as the spikelets, glabrous, 0‒1(3)-veined, distal glumes 2.6‒3.5 mm, glabrous, 5‒(7)-veined, without cross-venation; proximal florets staminate; proximal lemmas
2.6‒3.3 mm, glabrous, 5-veined, without cross-venation; distal lemmas 2.3‒2.8 mm long, 1‒1.3 mm wide, apices rounded, mucronate; anthers 1‒1.5 mm. |
|
| Fruit |
Caryopses 1.8-2 mm long.
|
|
| Chromosomes |
2n = 18, 36 |
|
| Contributor |
Nancy Khan |
