Polypogon fugax

Nees ex Steud.
Common names: Asian beardgrass
Treatment appears in FNA Volume 24. Treatment on page 663.
Please click on the illustration for a higher resolution version.
Illustrator: Cindy Roché

Copyright: Utah State University

Plants annual. Culms (8.5) 15-60 cm, often decumbent at the base and rooting at the nodes. Sheaths smooth; ligules 2-8 mm; blades 2-16 cm long, 2-11 mm wide, scabrous. Panicles 3-15 cm long, 0.5-5 cm wide, narrowly ovoid, oblong, or cylindrical, dense, usually lobed, pale green or yellowish; pedicels absent or to 0.5 mm; stipes 0.2-1.3 mm. Glumes 1.8-2.4 mm, equal to subequal, scabridulous to echinate, not tapering to the apices, apices acute to rounded, lobed, lobes 0.1-0.2 mm, awned from the sinuses, awns 0.6-3 mm, those of the lower and upper glumes subequal to equal, flexuous; lemmas 0.9-1.2 mm, smooth, unawned or awned, awns to 2 mm, flexuous; paleas 0.7-1.2 mm, from 3/4 as long as to equaling the lemmas; anthers 0.3-0.6 mm. 2n = 42.

Distribution

Pacific Islands (Hawaii)

Discussion

Polypogon fugax is native from Iraq to Myanmar [Burma]. It was collected in Santa Barbara, California, and from salt marshes around Oakland, California, in the nineteenth century, and from Portland, Oregon, in the early twentieth century. There are no recent collections from the Flora region.

Selected References

None.

Lower Taxa

None.