Relatives

Eragrostis pilosa (L.) Beauv. - Jersey Love-grass.

Taxonomic position.

Family Poaceae Benth. genus Eragrostis Wolf

Morphology and biology.

Annual grass. Culms 10-30(50) cm tall, geniculate from base, smooth. Sheaths glabrous and smooth; leaf blades (1)2-4(5) mm wide, flat or more or less convolute, long-acuminate, glabrous or scabrous. Lgules of upper leaves 0.2-0.5 mm long, in a form of cilia; sheath-blade joints with long hairs. Leaves without glandular tubercles. Panicle 6-25 cm long, with thin scabrous branches. Lower panicle branches aggregated in bunches of 3-5, more often upright. Bases of lower panicle branchings with bunches of long white hairs. Spikelets (2.5)3-5 mm long and 0.7-1.4 mm wide, with (4)5-10(12) florets, linear-lanceolate, linear-oblong, narrow, usually dark grey, quite often with lilaceous tint. Glumes lanceolate, obtusely acutate, unequal, lower one 0.3-0.6 mm long, upper one 0.5-1 mm long, one-veined. Lemma ovate or broadly lanceolate, keeled, awnless, 1.3-1.6 mm long, 3-veined. Anthers 0.2-0.3 mm long. Flowers in July - October. Anemophilous. 2n=35.

Distribution.

European part of the former USSR, Caucasus, West and East Siberia, Far East, Central Asia; Central Europe, Mediterranean, Asia Minor, Iran, Central and South Asia. Alien in many other countries.

Ecology.

On riverine sands and shingles, damp sandy sites, on granite and sandstone rocks; quite often weed at roadsides, railway embankments, in fields.

Use and economic value.

Forage grass.

References:

Grossheim AA. 1939. Flora of Caucasus. 2nd ed. V.1. 402 p. (In Russian).
Shelyag-Sosonko YuR., ed. Grasses of Ukraine. 1977. Kiev: Naukova Dumka. 518 p. (In Russian).
Kharkevich SS., ed. 1985. Vascular plants of the Soviet Far East. V.1. Leningrad: Nauka. 398 p. (In Russian).
Malyshev LI., Peshkova GA., eds. 1990. Flora of Siberia. V.4. Poaceae (Gramineae). Novosibirsk: Nauka. 361 p. (In Russian).
Tzvelev NN. 1976. Grasses of the Soviet Union. Leningrad: Nauka. 788 p. (In Russian).

© L.L.Malyshev

© Photo by N.Yu.Malysheva, L.L.Malyshev
 

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