Eragrostis echinochloidea
| Family: | Poaceae |
| Full name: | Eragrostis echinochloidea Stapf |
| Location: | Kyffhäuser (2416AD + 2416CB) |
| ID status: | Fairly certain |
| Afrikaans common name(s): | Bosluisgras, Krummelgras |
| English common name(s): | Tick grass, African lovegrass |
| Synonym(s): | Eragrostis auriculata Hack. |
| Status: | Native |
| Description: | Biennial (?), without innovation-shoots (?); culms geniculate, suberect from a slender short rhizome, branched, about 1.5 ft. long, rather firm, glaucous, glabrous, smooth, 3–4-noded, internodes exserted, branches sometimes fascicled; sheaths glabrous, loosely striate, upper tight, lower at length loosened, rather firm, more or less persistent; ligule a fringe of minute hairs; blades linear, tapering to a fine point, 1.5–3 in. by 1–1.5 lin., flat or involute, rigid, often spreading, glaucous, glabrous and smooth below, scaberulous and sometimes finely hairy in the upper part; panicle ovate-oblong to oblong, sometimes secund, about 2 in. long; axis smooth, angular towards the nodes; branches 5–7, spreading, triquetrous, more or less secund and spike-like from densely clustered spikelets, the lowest up to 1 in. long; pedicels very short; spikelets ovate, subacute, strongly compressed, 2 lin. by 1.25–1.5 lin., whitish, 7–13-flowered, often tinged with greyish-purple; rhachilla disarticulating; glumes oblong to ovate in profile, acute or mucronate-acuminate, 0.75–1 lin. long, 3-nerved; valves very broad-ovate in profile, acute, boat-shaped, 1 lin. long, hyaline margins broad below, side-nerves prominent; pales 0.75 lin. long, curved; keels scabrid above and with a large decurrent tooth-like appendage at the middle; anthers 0.4 lin. long; grain oblong, 0.4 lin. long, brown, smooth; pericarp loose. (from JSTOR Global Plants website / Flora Capensis) Caespitose perennial with short oblique rhizome; culms up to 60(85) cm tall, erect or ascending, usually unbranched but sometimes branched below, glabrous at the nodes, often with an annular gland below the nodes; basal leaf sheaths glabrous or thinly pilose, chartaceous, terete, with scattered glandular pits, persistent; ligule a line of hairs; leaf laminas (2.5)5–15(20) cm x (1)2–5 mm, linear, flat or involute, glabrous or scattered-pilose (the upper surface also asperulous), with or without glandular pits in the nerves beneath. Panicle 4–19 cm long, lanceolate to narrowly ovate, the spikelets densely clustered on very short pedicels on stubby side branches, the primary branches not in whorls, terminating in a fertile spikelet, glabrous in the axils, the rhachis with an annular gland beneath each branch and the branches with crateriform glands. Spikelets 3–4 x 2.5–3 mm, ovate to oblong-ovate, strongly laterally compressed, 6–12(14)-flowered, the florets disarticulating from the apex downwards, the rhachilla fragile; glumes subequal, 1.5–2 mm long, reaching to and sometimes exceeding the apex of the adjacent lemmas, keeled, lanceolate in profile, glabrous on the flanks, gland-dotted on the nerves, acuminate at the apex; lemmas c. 2 mm long, keeled, ovate in profile, membranous with prominent lateral nerves, diverging from the rhachilla at a wide angle but those in opposite rows imbricate and concealing the rhachilla, greyish-green, sometimes tinged with purple, glabrous on the flanks, gland-dotted on the keel and lateral nerves, subacute at the apex; palea glabrous on the flanks, the keels slender, scabrid above, broadly winged in the lower half, the upper margin of the wing sometimes truncate but usually concave (the wing thus auriculate); anthers 3, c. 0.6 mm long. Caryopsis c. 1 mm long, elliptic to oblong-elliptic. (from JSTOR Global Plants website / Flora Zambesiaca) |
| Link(s) |
African Plant Database
JSTOR Plant Science Kew Herbarium Catalogue BGBM Berlin-Dahlem - Virtual Herbarium Züricher Herbarien iNaturalist (Namibia / Alex Dreyer) iNaturalist (Namibia) iNaturalist (southern Africa) Flora of Zimbabwe Fleurs de notre Terre - Galerie Namibie Tree Atlas of Namibia |
| Photographer: | AA Dreyer |
| Date of photograph: | 23 Jun 2010 |
| Camera make: | Canon |
| Camera model: | PowerShot A700 |
| Lens aperture: | f/4.0 |
| Shutter speed: | 1/160 s |
| ISO speed: | - |
| Content last updated: | 18 Apr 2024 |
