Plants annual. Culms 20-70(112), often decumbent
and rooting at the lower nodes. Sheaths keeled, usually sparsely pubescent
with papillose-based hairs; ligules 0.5-2.6 mm; blades 2-11(14)
cm long, 3-8(12) mm wide, usually with papillose-based hairs on both surfaces,
sometimes glabrous. Panicles with 4-13 spikelike primary branches, these
subdigitate or on rachises to 6 cm; primary branches 3-30 cm long, 0.7-1.5
mmwide, flattened and winged, wings more than 1/2 as wide as the midribs, lower
and middle portion of the branches with spikelets in unequally pedicellate pairs,
pedicels not adnate to the branches; secondary branches rarely present.
Spikelets homomorphic, 1.7-3.4 mm long, 0.7-1.1 mm wide. Lower glumes
0.2-0.4 mm long, veinless; upper glumes 0.9-2 mm, 1/3-1/2 as long as
the spikelets, 3-veined, pubescent on the margins; lower lemmas usually
exceeded or equaled by the upper florets, sometimes exceeding them but by no
more than 0.2 mm, glabrous, 7-veined, lateral (or all) veins scabrous throughout
or smooth on the lower 1/3(1/2) and scabrous distally, 3 middle veins usually
widely spaced, remaining veins on each side close together and near the margins;
upper lemmas 1.7-3 mm, yellow or gray, frequently purple-tinged when
immature, often becoming brown at maturity; anthers 0.5-0.9 mm. 2n
= 36, 28, 34, 54.
Digitaria sanguinalis is a weedy Eurasian species that is now found in
waste ground of fields, gardens, and lawns throughout much of the world, including
the Flora region.
Decumbent or prostrate, much branched, rooting at the nodes, usually 3-6 dm; sheaths and blades papillose-pilose, the blades 4-10 cm × 5-10 mm; racemes 3-6 in each of 1-3 whorls, 5-15 cm; rachis 1 mm wide, broadly winged, scabrous on the margins; pedicels triquetrous, scabrous; spikelets 2.4-3.2 mm; first glume minute, often deciduous, the second 0.8-1.8 mm, a third to three-fifths the length of the spikelet; sterile lemma usually scabrous on the 5 strong veins; fertile lemma grayish-brown; 2n=18-76, mostly 36. Native of Europe, now cosmop. and established as a weed of lawns, fields, gardens, and waste places throughout our range and w. to the Pacific, giving way southward to no. 5 [Digitaria ciliaris (Retz.) Koeler].
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.