Plants perennial; cespitose, with innovations, without rhizomes, not glandular.
Culms 25-95(110) cm, erect, glabrous. Sheaths glabrous, summits
hairy, hairs 1-3 mm; ligules 0.2-0.4 mm; blades (8)12-40 cm long,
2-5 mm wide, flat to involute, abaxial surfaces glabrous, adaxial surfaces scabridulous
and glabrous or long ciliate basally. Panicles terminal, 15-30(45) cm long,
(4)8-17 cm wide, narrowly ovate, open to contracted; primary branches 5-15
cm, diverging 20-90° from the rachises, often capillary, usually naked basally;
pulvini glabrous; pedicels 0.3-6 mm, mostly appressed, scabridulous,
always shorter than the spikelets. Spikelets 6-15(18) mm long, 1.3-2(2.2)
mm wide, narrowly lanceolate, plumbeous, occasionally with a reddish-purple tinge,
with 8-30(40) florets; disarticulation usually in the rachilla below the
florets, occasionally the lemmas falling separately, leaving the paleas on the
rachilla. Glumes lanceolate to ovate, membranous to subhyaline, keeled;
lower glumes 1-1.4 mm; upper glumes 1.4-1.7 mm; lemmas 1.5-2.2
mm, broadly ovate, leathery, scabridulous, lateral veins evident, apices acute;
paleas 1.4-2.1 mm, hyaline, bases not projecting beyond the lemmas, keels
scabridulous, apices acute to obtuse; anthers 2, 0.4-0.6 mm, reddish-purple.
Caryopses 0.6-0.8 mm, obovoid to ellipsoid, terete, somewhat striate, reddish-brown.
2n = unknown.
Eragrostis bahiensis grows in sandy soils near river banks, lake shores,
and roadsides, at 0-200 m. Its range extends south from the Gulf Coast of the
United States through Mexico to Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Argentina.