ERAGROSTIS ciliaris (L.) R. Br. [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 2), page 177, (1974) Author: W. D. CLAYTON, S. M. PHILLIPS AND S. A. RENVOIZE
Names
ERAGROSTIS ciliaris (L.) R. Br. [family POACEAE], in Tuckey, Narr. Exp. Congo, App.: 478 (1818); Ann. list grasses Ug.: 18 (1947); F.P.N.A. 3: 160 (1955); F.P.S. 3: 450 (1956); R.K.G.: 17 (1958); Ann. list Nyasaland grasses: 39 (1958); I.G.U.: 29 (1960); G.T.: 36 (1965); Clayton in F.W.T.A., ed. 2, 3: 386 (1972). Type: Jamaica (LINN, holo.!)
Poa ciliaris L. [family POACEAE], Syst. Nat., ed. 10, 2: 875 (1759)
Megastachya ciliaris (L.) P. Beauv. [family POACEAE], Ess. Agrost.: 74, 167 (1812)
Cynodon ciliaris (L.) Rasp [family POACEAE], in Ann. Sci. Nat. 5: 302 (1825)
Eragrostis pulchella Parl. [family POACEAE], in Atti Riun. Sci. Ital. 8: 586 (1847). Type: Cape Verde Is., Hooker 81 (K, iso.!)
Eragrostis ciliaris Boiss. var. brachystachya [family POACEAE], Fl. Orient. 5: 582 (1884); F.P.S. 3: 450 (1956). Types: Arabia, Schweinfurth 1091 & Baluchistan, Stocks (both G, syn.!)
Eragrostis ciliaris Hack. var. latifolia [family POACEAE], in Denks. Kais. Akad. Wiss. Wien, Math.-Naturw. K1. 78: 403 (1905). Type: Mozambique, Tete, Boroma [Boruma], Menyhart 1125 (Z, iso.!)
Information
Tufted annual; culms 5–60 cm. high, erect. Leaf-blades flat, up to 12 cm. long and 5 mm. wide. Panicle spike-like, but often ± lobed or interrupted, 1–20 cm. long, woolly, the spikelets densely clustered. Spikelets 6–12-flowered, ovate, 2–4.5 mm. long, fluffy, often purplish, breaking up from the apex, the rhachilla fragile; glumes lanceolate, subequal, 0.7–1.2 mm. long, acute; lemmas oblong-elliptic, 0.9–1.5 mm. long, the keels (at least in the upper lemmas) bearing a few short stiff hairs, otherwise smooth, broadly obtuse, ± obscurely mucronate; palea-keels tuberculate-ciliate, the hairs 0.6–0.7 mm. long, exceeding the width of the adjacent floret; anthers 2, 0.2 mm. long. Caryopsis ellipsoid, 0.3–0.5 mm. long. Fig. 60/2, p. 190.
Range
DISTR. U1–4; K1, 2, 4, 5, 7; T1–4, 6–8; Z; P tropical and South Africa, extending through Arabia and the Mascarene Is. to India; tropical America
Altitude range
sea-level to 1400 m., or sometimes more
Distribution
KENYA Northern Frontier Province Dandu, 16 May 1952, Gillett 13213!KENYA Teita District 65 km. on Voi-Nairobi road, 14 Jan. 1962, Greenway 10470 !KENYA Kilifi District Malindi, 18 Aug. 1949, Bogdan 2618 !TANZANIA Tanga District Kihuhwi R., 19 Oct. 1932, Greenway 3249 !TANZANIA Mpanda/Ufipa District Rukwa, Rungwa R., 21 Oct. 1963, Vesey-FitzGerald 4200!TANZANIA Tunduru District just E. of Songea District boundary, 5 June 1956, Milne-Redhead & Taylor 10618 !TANZANIA Zanzibar I., Bweleo, 28 Jan. 1929, Greenway 1219 !TANZANIA Pemba I., Weti, Apr. 1929, Waterland 3UGANDA Teso District Katakwi, 16 Feb. 1956, Harker 240!UGANDA Mbale District Budama-Bunguli, 20 June 1927, Snowden 1121! & Tororo, 5 May 1941, A. S. Thomas 3851!
Notes
The woolly spike is usually distinctive, but in some specimens the panicle shape may approach extreme forms of E. tenella or E. arenicola; the cilia on the lemma-keel, though rather obscure, are then the surest means of determination. E. ciliaris also differs in the possession of only 2 stamens.  Specimens with the inflorescence reduced to an ovoid head have been separated as var. brachystachya, but they seem to be no more than a dwarfed form of arid habitats. Some such specimens have unusually short or scanty palea-hairs.  American plants are conspecific with the African, but have a different, though overlapping, range of variation.
ERAGROSTIS ciliaris (L.) R. Br. [family POACEAE]
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