Heteropogon villosus Nees
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Authority
Hitchcock, Albert S. 1927. The grasses of Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. Contr. U. S. Natl. Herb. 24: i-xx, 291-556.
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Family
Poaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Description - An erect or decumbent-spreading perennial as much as 1 meter tall, with villous nodes, flat blades, and exserted panicles of 2 to several villous subdigitate racemes on slender, drooping or S-shaped peduncles about 1 cm. long; first glume of sessile spikelet rounded on the margins, not keeled ; awn stipitiform at base, 3 to 5 cm. long.
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Discussion
Hackel places this species in the subgenus Dichanthium, but states that it is closely related to the subgenus Heteropogon and that if the racemes were always solitary, as they often are on the branches, it would be a true Heteropogon. The species resembles Euclasta condylotricha (Hochst.) Stapf (Andropogon piptatherus Hack.) in the fascicled racemes on nodding peduncles, but in the latter the first glume of the fertile spikelets is compressed dorsally, the edges are sharply inflexed and keeled, and the callus short and obtuse. In Seteropogon villosus the first glume of the fertile floret is indurate and little compressed, the edges are rounded and incurved but not keeled, and the callus is long, sharp, and villous, as in the other species of Heteropogon.