Star Island Grasses and Flowers

Festuca rubra is a species of grass known by the common name red fescue or creeping red fescue. It is found worldwide and can tolerate many habitats and climates. It is best adapted to well-drained soils in cool, temperate climates; it prefers shadier areas and is often planted for its shade tolerance. Wild animals browse it, but it has not been important for domestic forage due to low productivity and palatability. It is also an ornamental... less ↑

Digitaria is a genus of about 300 species of grass (family Poaceae) native to tropical and warm temperate regions. Common names include crabgrass, finger-grass, and fonio. They are slender monocotyledonous annual and perennial lawn, pasture, and forage plants; some are often considered lawn pests. Digitus is the Latin word for "finger", and they are distinguished by the long, finger-like inflorescences they produce. less ↑

Plants not cespitose. Culms acutely angled, 10–110 cm, scabrous. Leaves: basal sheaths red-brown; sheaths of proximal leaves glabrous, fronts lacking spots and veins, apex truncate; blades epistomic, 2–4.5 mm wide, adaxially papillose. Inflorescences: proximal bract subequal to inflorescence, 1.5–4 mm wide. Spikes erect; proximal 2–3 spikes pistillate, 1.2–4.2 cm × 3–5 mm, base obtuse or acute; terminal 1–2 spikes staminate. Pistillate scales dark purple-brown or black, shorter than perigynia, apex obtuse, awnless. Perigynia ascending, pale brown with red-brown or black spots on apical 1/2, occasionally black on apical 1/2, 3–9-veined on each face, somewhat flattened, tightly enclosing achenes, stipitate, ellipsoid or obovoid, 2–3.7 × 1.1–2.1 mm, somewhat leathery, dull, base truncate, distended, apex obtuse or rounded, papillose; stipe 0.1–0.3 mm; beak red-brown or black, 0.1–0.2 mm, orifice scabrous. Achenes not constricted, whitish iridescent, base adnate to perigynium. 2n = 83, 84, 85. less ↑