[Poa tenella L.; Eragrostis amabilis (L.) Wight & Arnott]
(nat)
Annuals; culms slender, erect or spreading, geniculate at base, 1-3 dm tall, glabrous. Sheaths glabrous, pilose at throat; ligule a fringe of hairs 0.2-0.4 mm long; blades lax, flat, striate, usually less than 10 cm long, 2-4 mm wide. Inflorescences paniculate, oblong or elliptic, 5—15 cm long, 3-6 cm wide, open, the branches slender, ascending or spreading, axils pilose, pedicels spreading, about as long as or longer than the spikelet; spikelets usually 4-6- flowered, 1.5-2 mm long, rachilla joints finally disarticulating; glumes subequal, broad, ca. 1 mm long; lemmas imbricate, ca. 1 mm long, apex obtuse; palea as long as lemma, conspicuously ciliate, the hairs widely spaced, straight, ca. 0.3 mm long. Caryopsis pale reddish brown, ellipsoid, 0.4-0.6 mm long. [2n - 20, 60.] Native to the Paleotropics, now widely naturalized throughout the tropics; in Hawai‘i naturalized in dry, well-drained sandy soils, on lava, and in disturbed sites such as along roadsides, trails, and borders of fields, 0- 470 m, on Midway Atoll, Ni‘ihau, 0‘ahu, Maui, Kaho‘olawe, and Hawaii. First collected on 0‘ahu in 1895 (Heller -1962, BISHPlate 228.