[Panicum ciliare Retz.; Digitaria adscendens (Kunth) Henr.; D. fimbriata Link; D. henryi Rendle; D. sanguinalis sensu Hawaiian botanists, non (L.) Scop.]
(nat) Henry’s crabgrass, kukaepua fa
Annuals; culms decumbent at base and geniculately ascending, 20-100 cm long. Sheaths variously covered with bulbous- based hairs, becoming glabrous apically; ligule 1-3 mm long, truncate to rounded, erose; blades linear, 3-25 cm long, 3-10 mm wide. Inflorescence composed of 2-12 racemes, digitately or subdigitately arranged, the axis up to 5 cm long, racemes stiff, 6-22 cm long, sometimes sparsely covered with long white hairs, axis trigonous, winged; spikelets in pairs, imbricate, narrowly elliptic, (2-)2.5-3.3(-3.7) mm long, sometimes the pedicellate or both spikelets with stiff yellowish bristles, apex sharply acute; first glume triangular, usually 0.2-0.4 mm long, second glume (Vi-yA-V* as long as thef spikelet, 3-nerved; first lemma as long as the spikelet, 7-nerved, the nerves smooth and evenly spaced or with a wide interval flanking the midnerve, appressed puberulent, silky pubescent or rarely short-villous, usually ciliate, second lemma narrowly ovate, ca. 2.8 mm long, hyaline, 3-nerved, glabrous; palea similar in shape and texture to lemma, ca. 2.8 mm long, 2-nerved, clasped by the lemma. Caryopsis gray to pale brown, ellipsoid. [2n = 18, 36, 54, 60, 68, 70, 72.] Native to China, Indo-China, Samoa, and the Philippines; in Hawaii naturalized and abundant in lawns and pastures, where it forms thick mats, 0-920 m, on Kure and Midway atolls, French Frigate Shoals, and all of the main islands. First collected on Hawaii in 1909 (Rock 3344, BISH).