(nat) Bur grass, bertero goatgrass
Annuals; culms erect or decumbent at base, 1-2.5 dm tall, pubescent below racemes. Sheaths 1-3 cm long, glabrous, striate, the uppermost often dilated; ligule ciliate, 0.5-0.7 mm long; blades thick, firm, 1.5-2 cm long or the uppermost vestigial, 1-3 mm wide, margins undulate, cartilaginous, pubescent with stiff white hairs. Racemes 3-7 cm long, 4-5 mm in diameter, often enclosed within the uppermost sheaths, rachis slender, pubescent; burs 2-3 mm long, beaked, pedicels pubescent, up to 0.5 mm long; spikelets 2 per bur; first glume absent, second glumes of the 2 spikelets forming the halves of a bur, convex, 3- nerved, the nerves bearing a row of stout hooked spines on either side; lemma ca. 2 mm long, apex acute, sparsely pubescent; palea 1.5-2 mm long, glabrous, apex acute. Caryopsis golden brown, 1.2-1.5 mm long. [2n = 20.] Native range unknown, distributed throughout Africa, warmer parts of America, and Asia; in Hawai‘i naturalized and common along roadsides and in arid, disturbed sites, 25-260 m, on Moloka‘i, Maui, and Kaho‘olawe. First collected on Maui in 1936 at the Hawaii Sugar Planters’ Association Experiment Station (Collector unknown s.n., BISH). —Plate 237.