Paspalum boscianum

Plants annual. Culms 15-96 cm, erect or prostrate, often rooting at the lower nodes; nodes glabrous. Sheaths glabrous; ligules 1-3.2 mm; blades to 56 cm long, 2.2-15 mm wide, flat. Panicles terminal, with 1-10(28) racemosely arranged branches; branches 1.2-8.2 cm, diverging; branch axes 0.7-2.3 mm wide, glabrous, broadly winged, wings about as wide as the central portion, margins scabrous, terminating in a spikelet. Spikelets 2-2.2 mm long, 1.3-1.8 mm wide, paired, appressed to the branch axes, glabrous, broadly elliptic, obovate, or orbicular, light to dark brown. Lower glumes absent; upper glumes glabrous, 5-veined, margins entire; lower lemmas glabrous, 3-5-veined, margins entire; upper florets dark glossy brown. Caryopses 1.4-1.6 mm, white. 2n = 40.

Paspalum boscianum grows in moist to dry, disturbed areas, and at the edges of forests. It is native from the southeastern United States through the West Indies and Mexico to Brazil. The California record came from a weed in a rice field.

Annual; culms solitary or tufted, 6-10 dm, sometimes branched above; sheaths loose, glabrous; blades 6-17 mm wide, glabrous or sparsely pilose toward the base; panicle often equaled or exceeded by the upper lvs; racemes 5-10, spreading or ascending, 4-7 cm; rachis 1-2.5 mm wide; spikelets paired, crowded, obovate-oblong, acutish, glabrous, 2-2.8 mm, three-fourths as wide; glume 5-veined, the outer veins approximate near the margin; sterile lemma 3-veined; fertile lemma and palea dark brown; 2n=40. Moist or wet soil, sometimes a weed; tropical Amer., n. to Va.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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