Zoysia sinica Hance

This species can be recognized by its long, straight-sided spikelets with falcate tips. Specimens with spikelets at the upper end of the size range (5–8 mm) have been separated as var. nipponica, but variation is continuous and spikelet size can be variable even on a single specimen.

This species is a good lawn grass.

Zoysia sinica Hance var. macrantha (Nakai) Ohwi, Bot. Mag. Tokyo 10: 269. 1941.
Zoysia liukiuensis Honda, Bot. Mag. Tokyo 36: 114. 1922. Culm tufted, slender, with stolon. Blade 4-6 cm long by 2-3 mm wide, apex needle-like; ligule about 0.2 mm long, upper part a fringe of hairs; sheath-mouth with long silky hairs. Inflorescence a contracted panicle, about 2.5 cm long. Spikelets 1-flowered, about 4 mm long, pale purplish; lower glume wanting; upper glume as long as the spikelet, coriaceous, folded, margins membranous and inrolled, shortly awned at the apex; lemma membranous, lanceolate, truncate or with a sinus, 1-nerved; palea and lodicule reduced.

Perennial, forming dense spreading mats from slender underground rhizomes. Culms erect from nodes of rhizome, stiff, 10–30 cm tall, branched at base. Leaf sheaths glabrous, usually persistent at base, pilose at mouth; leaf blades broadly linear, flat or margins involute, stiff, suberect to patent, 2–10 cm, 2–3 mm wide, green or gray-green, glabrous, apex pungent. Inflorescence linear-elliptic, 2–4(–8) × 0.4–0.5 cm, usually shortly exserted from uppermost leaf sheath; spikelets many, closely overlapping; pedicels shorter than spikelet, ca. 3 mm, widened at apex. Spikelets 4–8 × 1–1.5 mm, yellowish brown or purplish brown; lower glume absent; upper glume lanceolate-oblong to narrowly oblong with slightly falcate apex, obscurely 7–11-veined, midvein usually shortly excurrent; lemma lanceolate-oblong, 3–4 mm, 1-veined; palea absent. Anthers 1.5–2.5 mm. Fl. and fr. May–Oct.

Distributed in littoral regions on mainland China and Taiwan.

Coastal sands, extending to grazed and trodden places inland. Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hebei, Jiangsu, Liaoning, Shandong, Taiwan, Zhejiang [Japan, Korea].

Zoysia matrella (Linnaeus) Merrill var. macrantha Nakai ex Honda; Z. sinica var. macrantha (Nakai ex Honda) Ohwi; Z. sinica subsp. nipponica (Ohwi) T. Koyama; Z. sinica var. nipponica Ohwi.