(nat) Molasses grass
Strong-smelling perennials; culms as-cending, decumbent at base and branching often, up to 10 dm tall. Leaves viscid-pubescent; sheaths often sticky, tomentose; ligule a row of hairs 0.5-1 mm long; blades flat, 10-25 cm long, 3-11 mm wide. Panicles dense, often purple-tinged, lanceoloid to narrowly ovoid, 10-30 cm long, pedicels scaberulous, rarely with a few long hairs; spikelets narrowly oblong, 1.5-2(-2.4) mm long, glabrous or sometimes pubescent; first glume vestigial, represented by a minute oblong scale 0.2-0.5 mm long, second glume purple to green, 2-2.5 mm long, prominently 7-nerved, the nerves raised, apex obtuse, bifid, ± with a mucro up to 0.5 mm long; first floret reduced to a lemma, the lemma purple to green, linear, ca. 2 mm long, 5-nerved, the nerves raised, apex bifid, awn scabrous, arising from the midnerve, 10-15 mm long; second lemma enclosing the palea, whitish green to pale green, coriaceous, linear, 1.6-1.8 mm long, 5-nerved, nerves raised, glabrous, apex acute, minutely bifid, ± awned from between the lobes, the awn up to 15 mm long; second palea similar to second lemma in shape, size, and appearance. Caryopsis not observed and often undeveloped. [2n = 36, 40.] Native to Africa, and now introduced to many parts of the tropics as a fodder plant; in Hawaii naturalized and common in primarily dry to mesic, dis-turbed, usually open areas, 120-1,220 m, on all of the main islands except Ni‘ihau. First collected on Lana‘i in 1914 (Munro 405, BISH). Considered to be a serious pest in these habitats, choking out or covering native vegetation and preventing seedling establishment.—Plate 231.