Australian Tropical Rainforest Plants - Online edition

Eragrostis cumingii Steud.


Grass
Click/tap on images to enlarge
Inflorescence. © R.L. Barrett
Inflorescence. © R.L. Barrett
Leaf. © R.L. Barrett
Habit, leaves and inflorescence. © R.L. Barrett
Herbarium specimen. © CSIRO
Family

Steudel, E.G. von (1854) Synopsis Plantarum Glumacearum 1(3): 266.

Common name

Cumings Love Grass

Stem

Culms tufted, erect, slender, usually with scaly buds at base, glabrous, 20-70 cm tall and 3-4 noded.

Leaves

Leaf sheaths compressed at base, glabrous, long pilose along summit; ligules 0.1-0.3 mm, fimbriate, up to 3 mm high; leaf blades involute, 5-19 × 0.1-0.2 cm, glabrous on both surfaces, but long pilose at base of adaxial surface.

Flowers

Inflorescence an open or lax panicle, 8-30 × 4-8 cm; branches solitary, naked in the lower part and glabrous in the axils, with prominent gland at base of inflorescence branch. Spikelets narrowly oblong, 5-20 × 2-2.5 mm and 8-40-flowered. Glumes chartaceous, deltoid-oblong, easily falling off when mature, lower glume 1-veined, ca. 1 mm, upper glume 1-3-veined, ca. 1.3 mm long. Lemmas broadly ovate with the lateral veins nearly parallel, lower lemma ca. 2 mm long. Palea chartaceous, oblanceolate, persistent or tardily deciduous, strongly 2-keeled and ciliate along the keels.

Fruit

Caryopsis elliptical, terete to laterally flattened and 0.8-1 mm, testa with prominent long and parallel cells.

Seedlings

Features not available.

Distribution and Ecology

Occurs in WA, NT, CYP, NEQ, CEQ and widespread in northern Australia. Altitudinal range from near sea level to 640 m. Grows in Eucalyptus forest, various types of woodland, Acacia shrubland and grassland. Also from Japan and SE Asia.

RFK Code
4258
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