Broadleaf Carpetgrass

This is a good lawn and fodder grass.

Perennials; stolons long creeping. Leaf blade thin, 5-20 cm long, 8-10 cm wide, broad and with a rounded apex; ligule short, ca. 0.5 mm long; sheath loose, basal ones imbricate. Racemes 2-5, digitately arranged, 5-10 cm long; rachis triangular, spikelets in 2-rows along one-side. Spilelets sparingly soft hairy, 2-3 mm long, compressed, oblong, obtuse; lower glume wanting; upper glume and lower lemma same shape, lower palea absent; upper floret hard, oblong-elliptic, obtuse, margins slightly inrolled, ca. 2 mm long, mucronate and pubescent at apex.

Perennial with vigorous creeping stolons, forming sward. Culms 15–60 cm tall, nodes bearded. Leaf sheaths loose, strongly compressed, keeled, basal sheaths imbricate; leaf blades broadly linear to lanceolate, flat or folded, 5–20 × 0.6–1.2 cm, glabrous or adaxial surface pilose, apex obtuse; ligule 0.3–0.5 mm. Racemes 2–5, digitate or subdigitate, 4–10 cm, only slightly diverging; rachis glabrous. Spikelets oblong-lanceolate, 2–2.7 mm, pilose or glabrous, apex acute; upper glume and lower lemma 2–4-veined, midvein absent, laterals marginal; upper lemma pale, oblong-elliptic, shorter than spikelet, obtuse with an apical tuft of hairs; stigmas pale. Fl. and fr. summer–autumn. 2n = 40, 50, 60, 80.

S. United States, Mexico to Brazil. Introduced into many warm countries.

Native to tropical America. Introduced and naturalized in many warm countries. Taiwan, moist and shady areas.

900-1800 m

Roadsides, weedy places on moist ground, naturalized. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Taiwan, Yunnan [native to tropical America; widely introduced elsewhere].

Milium compressum Sw., Prodr. 24. 1788.

Milium compressum Swartz, Prodr. 24. 1788; Paspalum compressum (Swartz) Raspail (1825), not Rafinesque (1817); P. guadaloupense Steudel.