[Holcus pertusus L.; Andropogon pertusus (L.) Willd.] (nat) Pitted beardgrass Sprawling perennials, rhizomes contracted; culms 30-100 cm tall, hollow, freely branching, glabrous except upwardly bearded at nodes, rooting at lower nodes. Sheaths keeled, hirsute; ligule a ciliate membrane, 0.7-1.2 mm long; blades 3-4 mm wide, with scattered, elongate, papillose-based hairs along margins and above ligule. Inflorescences terminal, often purplish, flabellate, 3-5 cm long, peduncles exserted up to 12 cm from the subglabrous, bladeless upper sheath, glabrous or slightly bearded at apex, consisting of several ascending racemes, racemosely arranged along a short axis, pedicels of pedicellate spikelet ca. 3 mm long, densely villous, flattened; pedicellate spikelet 3-4 mm long, sterile or sometimes staminate, often purple-tinged, scaberulous; sessile spikelet ca. 5mm long; first glume subcoriaceous, with a conspicuous pit in the middle, villous on lower 1/2, scabrous on upper 1/2, attenuate, often bidentate at apex, second glume ca. 5 mm long, submembranous, keeled, minutely puberulent at apex, otherwise glabrous, apiculate; first (sterile) lemma 2.5-2.7 mm long, hyaline, ciliate on upper margins, fertile lemma reduced to a slender, geniculate, reddish brown awn 15-20 mm long; palea absent. Caryopsis ovoid to ellipsoid, 1.5-2 mm long. [2n = 36, 40, 60.] Native to the Paleotropics, now naturalized in Neotropical areas; in Hawai‘i naturalized usually in open, disturbed sites such as pastures, savannas, and along roadsides, 5-1,340 m, documented from all of the main islands. First collected on 0‘ahu in 1936 (Hosaka 1378, BISH).—Plate220.