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Digitaria sp. A

Derivation
Digitaria Haller, Hist. Stirp. Helv. 2: 244 (1768). From the Latin digitus (finger), alluding to the radiating inflorescence branches.

Common synonyms
Digitaria sp. Mt Mulligan


Habit
Perennial, tufted. Stolons absent. Culms erect, 30–60 cm tall, 5–7-noded. Mid-culm internodes glabrous. Mid-culm nodes glabrous, without obvious supra-nodal ridge. Lateral branches branched. Leaf-sheaths glabrous on surface. Ligule an eciliate membrane. Leaf-blades involute, 2.5–7.5 cm long, 0.5–0.8 mm wide. Leaf-blade surface smooth, hairy. Leaf-blade margins scabrous.

Inflorescence
Inflorescence digitate or subdigitate, with racemose branches. Raceme 1–5. Spikelet packing imbricate.

Spikelets
Spikelets solitary or clustered at each node or in pairs. Pedicels 0.6–2.8 mm long, scabrous, glabrous, tip discoid or cupuliform. Fertile spikelets 2-flowered, comprising 1 fertile floret, lower floret sterile, upper fertile, dorsally compressed, 1.3–1.6 mm long, falling entire. Rhachilla internodes brief up to lowest fertile floret.

Glumes
Lower glume 0.2–0.4 mm long. Upper glume dorsally convex in profile, 0.3–0.7 mm long, 0-nerved. Upper glume surface glabrous.

Florets
Basal sterile floret 1, without significant palea. Lemma of lower sterile floret 1.3–1.5 mm long, 3-nerved, with nerves meeting and uniting at apex, glabrous. Fertile lemma 1.3–1.6 mm long. Lemma apex muticous or mucronate or awned.


Continental Distribution:
Australasia.

Australian Distribution:
Northern Territory, Queensland.

Northern Territory: Darwin & Gulf. Queensland: Cook, Burke, North Kennedy, South Kennedy, Mitchell.

Classification. (GPWG 2001):
Panicoideae: Paniceae

Notes
Native. Rocky sites, predominantly sandstone, also quartzite. Flowers Apr.–July.


Images
Illustrations available:
Inflorescence (scanned specimen)
Spikelet (photo)
Australian distribution



Inflorescence (scanned specimen)
© Queensland Herbarium
AQ 664016
by D.Sharp


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Spikelet (photo)
© Queensland Herbarium
AQ 664016
by D.Sharp


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Australian Distribution
© ABRS


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