Lycurus phalaroides Kunth

Lycurus phalaroides H.B.K. Nov. Gen. & Sp. 1: 142. 1815
Muhlenbergia lycuroides Vasey; Beal, Grasses N. Am. 2; 239. 1896. (Type from Guadalaiara
Mexico. Palmer 4Sff in ISS6). Lycurus phleoides var. brevifolius Beal, Grasses N. Am. 2: 271. 1896. (Specimens cited from
Orizaba and Guadalajara, Mexico.)
Culms cespitose, decumbent-spreading, several-noded, compressed, more or less scaberulous especially about the nodes, 15-40 cm. long, producing numerous short leafy fascicled branches at all or many of the nodes; sheaths keeled, scaberulous, scabrous, or scabrouspubescent, mostly shorter than the internodes; ligule less than 0.5 mm. long, usually not noticeable from side view; blades flat or often more or less folded, scaberulous to pubescent on both surfaces, scabrous on the thickened cartilaginous margin, mostly less than 5 cm. long, 1-2 mm. wide; panicles terminating the culms and branches, slender, compact, pale, greenish or plumbeous, 2-7 cm. long, about 5 mm. thick; first glume I-awned or with a small lateral one; second glume 1-awned; lemma a little longer than the glumes, the body about 3 mm. long, pilose, the awn 2-3 mm. long.
Type locality: Michoacan, Mexico.
Distribution: Rocky hills and plains, Coahuila to Chiapas; also in southern South America.

Perennials, intricately branched near base. Culms 10−30 cm tall, erect, mostly glabrous, usually decumbent and sprawling below, bent at the pubescent to short pilose nodes; internodes 0.4−10 (−15) cm long, pubescent to short pilose. Leaf sheaths much shorter than the internodes above, hyaline near the margins, pilose near summit; ligules 0.4−1 mm long, membranous, apex truncate to deltoid, often erose and lacerate; blades 0.5−6.5 cm long, 0.5−1.2 mm wide, shorter near the base of culms, flat, folded or loosely involute, lanate above and glabrous or with scattered, short appressed hairs below, margins whitish-thickened, apex navicular, occasionally with a short seta, seta usually less than 2 mm long. Panicles 1.5−6.5 cm long, 3−8 mm wide, spiciform and spike-like, densely flowered, often interrupted below with only a few spikelets, terminal or axillary; rachis lanate to hispid, the short hairs antrose or appressed; branches 1.5−7 mm long, very short, the spiklets usually in pairs, rarely 1 or 3 per terminal branch, when in pairs the lower short-pedicelled spikelet perfect, staminate or sterile and the upper longer-pedicelled spikelet usually perfect; pedicels 0.3−1.4 mm long; disarticulation usually at the base of the pedicel, each spikelet falling as a unit leaving a small cup-like tip. Spikelets 3−4 mm long, stramineous with plumbeous mottles, sometimes additionally with purplish mottles; glumes 1−2.1 mm long, shorter than the lemma, subequal, 1−3-veined; lower glumes commonly 2 or 3-veined, usually 2-awned, ocassionally 1 or 3 awned, the awns 1−3 mm long, equal or subequal, scabrous, recurved; upper glumes commonly 1-veined, usually 1-awned, the awns 1−2.5 mm long; lemmas 3−4 mm long, narrowly lanceolate, 3-veined, margins hirsute to lanate and occasionally the lower ½ sparsely hairy, the hairs 0.1−0.3 mm long, apex usually awned, occasionally unawned or mucronate, the awns 1−3 mm long; paleas 2.8−3.8 mm long, hairy between the veins, the veins occasionally extending as mucros; anthers 1.3−2 mm long, yellowish. Caryopses 1.7−2 mm long, fusiform, brownish.

Muhlenbergiaphalaroides ranges from Mexico to South America where it is found in Argentina, Bolivia, Columbia, Ecuador and Peru (Reeder 1985; Sánchez and Rúgolo de Agrasar 1986; Davidse and Pohl 1994).