St. Augustine Grass

This grass is widely cultivated in the moist tropics as a lawn grass (St. Augustine Grass).

Perennial, stoloniferous and forming a dense sward. Culms much branched, flowering shoots 10–30 cm tall. Leaf sheaths strongly keeled, often grouped in flabellate clusters; leaf blades broadly linear, folded when young, up to 15 × 0.4–1 cm, apex obtuse; ligule ca. 0.5 mm. Inflorescence 5–12 cm, slender, cylindrical; axis corky, disarticulating into segments at maturity; racemes 4–10 mm, reduced to 1–3 spikelets embedded in one face of the rachis, alternating on either side of the sinuous midrib; raceme rachis a stout pointed appendage within the axis cavity. Spikelets lanceolate, 4–5 mm, acute; lower glume up to 1/4 as long as spikelet; upper glume as long as spikelet; lower floret staminate, lemma cartilaginous, 3-veined, palea well developed; upper lemma papery, subequal to spikelet, smooth, acute. Fl. and fr. summer.

Cultivated as lawn grass. Hong Kong [tropical and subtropical shores on both sides of Atlantic Ocean, extending around S Africa to Mozambique].

Ischaemum secundatum Walter, Fl. Carol. 249. 1788.