Plants perennial; cespitose, with innovations, without rhizomes, not glandular.
Culms 30-62 cm, erect, glabrous and shiny below the nodes. Sheaths
sometimes densely pilose dorsally and on the collars, margins and apices hairy,
hairs to 5 mm; ligules 0.2-0.4 mm; blades 5-20(33) cm long, 1-3.5
mm wide, involute to flat, both surfaces with scattered hairs, adaxial surfaces
densely hairy behind the ligules, hairs to 7 mm. Panicles 15-25 cm long,
5-27 cm wide, ovate, open; primary branches 0.6-15 cm, diverging up to
90° from the rachises, capillary, naked basally; pulvini hairy, hairs
to 8 mm; pedicels 1.4-10(16) mm, divergent. Spikelets (2.5)3-5 mm
long, 1.1-1.6 mm wide, narrowly lanceolate to linear-oblong, plumbeous, with 4-9
florets; disarticulation acropetal, paleas persistent. Glumes broadly
ovate to narrowly lanceolate, hyaline to membranous; lower glumes 1.1-1.6
mm; upper glumes 1.2-1.8 mm; lemmas 1.2-1.8 mm, broadly ovate, membranous
throughout, lateral veins inconspicuous, apices acute; paleas 1.1-1.7 mm,
membranous to hyaline, narrower than the lemmas, apices obtuse; anthers
3, 0.3-0.5 mm, reddish-purple. Caryopses 0.5-0.8 mm, obovoid to somewhat
prism-shaped, laterally compressed, with a well-developed adaxial groove, finely
striate, opaque to translucent, reddish-brown. 2n
= 60, 80.
Eragrostis polytricha
grows in sandy and rocky areas, at 0-30 m, usually
in open pinelands. It is native to Florida but its primary range lies to the south
of the Flora region, from southern Mexico through Central America to Venezuela,
Chile, and Argentina.
