Carrot Seed Grass

Eastern desert, Res Sea coastal strip and Gebel Elba.

Widespread in Africa and warmer parts of America, Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and China.

Wadi-beds.

Annual.

A weedy species of trampled or overgrazed places, often on poor sandy or stony soils. In the older literature it is often confused with Tragus racemosus (Linn.) All. which has a 7-nerved upper glume.

Annual, mat-forming. Culms tufted, usually decumbent at base and rooting at lower nodes, 15–30 cm tall. Leaf sheaths shorter than or subequal to internodes; leaf blades broadly linear, tough, flat, glaucous, 3–7 cm, 3–4 mm wide, margins thick, pectinate-spinose, apex acute. Inflorescence 4–11 × ca. 0.5 cm; racemes of 2 unequal spikelets separated by a 0.4–0.6 mm rachis internode; rachis not extended beyond upper spikelet; basal peduncle 0.2–0.4 mm. Lower spikelet fertile, elliptic, 2–3 mm; lower glume suppressed; upper glume 5-ribbed, ribs bearing hooked, swollen-based spines, apex acute; lemma ovate-lanceolate, 1.8–2.1 mm, puberulous, apex sharply acute. Upper spikelet sterile, narrowly elliptic, 1.5–2.2 mm, often reduced to the upper glume. Fl. and fr. summer to autumn. 2n = 20.

Loosely tufted annual; culms 5-60 cm high, erect or ascending. Leaf-blades 1-6 cm long, 2-5 mm wide. Inflorescence 2-15 cm long, compactly cylindrical, congested; clusters plump, the tips incurved, consisting of 2 spikelets of which the upper is smaller and borne upon a distinct internode 0.3-0.7 mm long. Lower spikelet 2-3(33) mm long; upper glume 5-nerved, the prickles turgid to bulbous in their lower half and hooked at the tip.

Distribution: Pakistan (Baluchistan); throughout Africa and the warmer parts of America; also in Arabia, Afghanistan and China.

Roadsides, other weedy places. Anhui, Gansu, Hebei, Jiangsu, Nei Mongol, Shaanxi, Sichuan [Afghanistan, Pakistan; Africa, America, SW Asia].

Tragus racemosus (Linnaeus) Allioni var. berteronianus (Schultes) Hackel; T. tcheliensis Debeaux.

berteronianus: in honor of Carlo Luigi Guiseppe Bertero (1789-1831), Italian botanist, naval physician, pharmacist and traveller

Erect or ascending annual grass, up to 45 cm. Leaves short, broad and wavy with spaced hairs along the margin. Inflorescence a long, dense spike. Spikelets covered in barbed hairs, which easily stick to clothing and fur.

Common

Africa, Arabia, Afghanistan and China; also tropics and subtropics of New World

Annuals, Terrestrial, not aquatic, Stems nodes swollen or brittle, Stems erect or ascending, Stems geniculate, decumbent, or lax, sometimes rooting at nodes, Stems caespitose, tufted, or clustered, Stems terete, round in cross section, or polygonal, Stem internodes hollow, Stems with inflorescence less than 1 m tall, Stems, culms, or scapes exceeding basal leaves, Leaves mostly cauline, Leaves conspicuously 2-ranked, distichous, Leaves sheathing at base, Leaf sheath mostly open, or loose, Leaf sheath smooth, glabrous, Leaf sheath hairy at summit, throat, or collar, Leaf sheath and blade differentiated, Leaf blades linear, Leaf blades very narrow or filiform, less than 2 mm wide, Leaf blades 2-10 mm wide, Leaf blades mostly flat, Leaf blades mostly glabrous, Ligule present, Ligule a fringe of hairs, Inflorescence terminal, Inflorescence a dense slender spike-like panicle or raceme, branches contracted, Inflorescence soli tary, with 1 spike, fascicle, glomerule, head, or cluster per stem or culm, Inflorescence spike linear or cylindric, several times longer than wide, Inflorescence a panicle with narrowly racemose or spicate branches, Inflorescence branches more than 10 to numerous, Peduncle or rachis scabrous or pubescent, often with long hairs, Flowers bisexual, Spikelets pedicellate, Spikelets sessile or subsessile, Spikelets dorsally compressed or terete, Spikelet less than 3 mm wide, Spikelets with 1 fertile floret, Spikelets paired at rachis nodes, Spikelets bisexual, Spikelets disarticulating below the glumes, Spikelets falling with parts of disarticulating rachis or pedicel, Rachilla or pedicel glabrous, Glumes present, empty bracts, Glumes 1 clearly present, the other greatly reduced or absent, Glumes distinctly unequal, Glumes equal to or longer than adjacent lemma, Glume equal to or longer than spikelet, Glumes and spikelets tuberculate, warty, or spiny, Glume surface hairy, villo us or pilose, Glumes 4-7 nerved, Lemmas thin, chartaceous, hyaline, cartilaginous, or membranous, Lemma 3 nerved, Lemma body or surface hairy, Lemma apex acute or acuminate, Lemma awnless, Lemma margins thin, lying flat, Lemma straight, Lemma surface pilose, setose or bristly, Palea present, well developed, Palea membranous, hyaline, Palea about equal to lemma, Palea 2 nerved or 2 keeled, Stamens 3, Styles 2-fid, deeply 2-branched, Stigmas 2, Fruit - caryopsis, Caryopsis ellipsoid, longitudinally grooved, hilum long-linear.