Panicum sphaerocarpon Elliott
Stiff, light green tufts, 12-20 cm; basal leaves differing from culm leaves and forming a winter rosette. Leaf-sheath light green to purplish, glabrous but margins ciliate. Ligule 0.2-0.5 mm, ciliate, hairs sparse. Collar hairs long, tubercle-based. Leaf-blade 3-10 cm × 7-13 mm, firm, rather thick, broadly linear to elliptic-oblong, narrowed above, ribs fine, inconspicuous; abaxially smooth, adaxially finely scabrid on ribs; margins thickened, scabrid, ciliate near cordate base, tip acute to acuminate. Culm erect to spreading, nodes appressed-pubescent, internodes glabrous. Panicle 5-8 × 2-4 cm; branches very slender, glabrous; pedicels almost filiform, tipped by solitary spikelets. Spikelets < 2 mm, green to purplish, ovoid, subacute. Glumes very unequal; lower c. 0.5 mm, membranous, glabrous, obtuse, upper = spikelet, 7-nerved, elliptic-ovate, subacute, puberulent. Lower floret Ø: lemma similar to upper glume, 7-nerved; palea 0. Upper floret ⚥: lemma 1.6-1.8 mm, elliptic, subacute, glabrous, faintly striolate, white, shining; palea narrower; anthers 0.3-0.4 mm; gynoecium: ovary c. 0.3 mm, stigma-styles c. 1.8 mm, stigmas deep purple; caryopsis not seen.
N.: South Auckland, Thames County (Whenuakite), Lake Whangape. Damp ground.
Naturalised from America.
In all specimens seen culms bore only terminal panicles, spikelets were ovoid and no seed was set; in American plants spikelets containing mature seed become spherical.
MISAPPLIED NAME
Panicum glumare Trin., Gram. Pan. 143 (1826) was stated by Trinius to come from New Zealand. Veldkamp, J. F. Blumea 41: 413-437 (1996) considered that the holotype at LE was mislabelled as to locality and treated P. glumare as the basionym of Urochloa glumaris (Trin.) Veldkamp, a species of Indomalesia, Polynesia and New Caledonia.
