Compilation
Aristida curvata

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Name

Identification
Aristida curvata (Nees) Henrard [family POACEAE ] (stored under name); Aristida pusilla Trin. & Rupr. [family POACEAE ]
Related name
  • Chaetaria curvata
  • Aristida curvata
  • Aristida vulgaris
  • Chaetaria mauritiana
  • Aristida adscensionis
  • Aristida pusilla

Flora

Entry for ARISTIDA adscensionsis L. [family POACEAE]
Herbarium
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (K)
Collection
Flora of Tropical East Africa
Resource Type
Reference Sources
Entry From
Flora of Tropical East Africa, Part (Part 1), page 1, (1970) Author: W. D. Clayton
Names
ARISTIDA adscensionsis L. [family POACEAE], Sp. Pl.: 82 (1753); Imp. grassl. pl. Kenya: 46 (1951); F.P.S. 3: 395 (1956); R.K.G.: 34 (1958); Ann. list Nyasaland grasses: 29 (1958); I.G.U.: 17 (1960); G.T.: 24 (1965). Type: Ascension I., Osbeck (LINN, holo.!)
ARISTIDA submucronata Schumach. [family POACEAE], in Schumach. & Thonn., Beskr. Guin. Pl.: 67 (1827); F.P.S. 3: 395 (1956). Type: Ghana, Thonning (C, holo.!)
Chaetaria curvata Nees [family POACEAE], Fl. Afr. Austr.: 186 (1841). Type: South Africa, Cape Province, Ecklon (B, holo.!)
Aristida curvata (Nees) Trin. & Rupr. [family POACEAE], Sp. Gram. Stip.: 133 (1842); de Winter in Bothalia 8: 253 (1965)
Aristida guineënsis Trin. & Rupr. [family POACEAE], Sp. Gram. Stip.: 137 (1842). Type: Ghana, Thonning (LE, holo.)
Aristida mauritiana A. Rich. [family POACEAE], Tent. Fl. Abyss. 2: 392 (1851), non Kunth (1829), nom. illegit. Type: Ethiopia, Modat, Ailet, Schimper 1047 (K, iso.!)
Aristida adscensionis (Trin. & Rupr.) Henr. subsp. guineënsis [family POACEAE], in Med. Rijks Herb. Leiden 54: 216 (1926); Ann. list grasses Ug.: 3 (1947)
Information
Annual, forming erect or sprawling tufts 10–100 cm. high. Leaf-blades linear, up to 20 cm. long and 3 mm. wide, expanded or folded. Panicle up to 30 cm. long, occasionally lax, usually ± contracted about the main branches, sometimes narrow and dense. Spikelets pallid, green or tinged with purple; glumes unequal, linear-lanceolate to lanceolate, scaberulous on the keel, emarginate and mucronate or acute but never awned, the upper 5–10 mm. long, the lower 1–3 mm. shorter; lemma 5–13 mm. long, sometimes no longer than the glumes but usually exceeding the upper by 1–2 mm. or more, laterally compressed, convolute, scabrid on the keel or sometimes generally scaberulous on the upper part, passing into the awns without constriction or articulation; callus narrowly oblong, 0.5 mm. long, obtuse; central awn 7–25 mm. long, the laterals subequal or occasionally conspicuously shorter.
Range
DISTR. U1–4; K1–7; T1–8; Z throughout the tropics
Altitude range
0–2000 m.
Distribution
KENYA Northern Frontier Province Dandu, 3 May 1952, Gillett 13021!KENYA Masai District 72 km. on Nairobi-Magadi road, 26 June 1952, Bogdan 3465!KENYA Teita District Maungu, 10 Dec. 1961, Polhill & Paulo 941!TANGANYIKA Mbulu District Lake Manyara National Park, 20 Mar. 1964, Greenway & Kanuri 11388!TANGANYIKA Ufipa District Ilemba Gap, Vesey-FitzGerald 2344!TANGANYIKA Kondoa District near Kandaga, 21 Mar. 1928, B. D. Burtt 1554!UGANDA Karamoja District near Nabilatuk, Emoruangaberru, 22 May 1956, Dyson-Hudson 7!UGANDA Toro District Semliki valley, Nyambirizi, 23 Nov. 1935, A. S. Thomas 1546!UGANDA Mbale District Bugishu, Budama and Bunyali, 20 June 1927, Snowden 1119!ZANZIBAR Zanzibar I., Mbweni, 4 Feb. 1929, Greenway 1334! & Chem-Chem, Dec. 1927, Vaughan 986 & Fumba peninsula, R. M. Davies 3!
Notes
Aristida adscensionis may usually be recognized by its awnless glumes, exserted from which is the laterally compressed lemma passing into the awn-branches without trace of beak or neck. It is a very variable species, without apparent discontinuities. Specimens with dense narrow panicles have been separated as A. curvata, but variation in the lengths and relative lengths of glumes and lemmas is similar in both species, suggesting that the empirical difference in panicle shape is a purely artificial character. In some specimens the lateral awns are extremely short. Although remarkable, these deviants are connected to the more usual form with subequal awns by a full range of intermediates, and do not seem to be of much taxonomic significance. It is closely related to A. caerulescens Desf., an almost identical perennial species from the Mediterranean region.

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