Para Grass

This is a forage grass (Para Grass) widely cultivated in tropical regions of the world and often found as a naturalized escape. Its country of origin is unknown.

Perennials; culm stout, 5-8 mm in diam., decumbent and rooting at basal nodes, 2-5 mm long, node densely villous. Blades pubescent, 10-30 cm long, 10-15 mm wide; sheath villous, longer than internode; ligule ca. 1.3 mm long, membranaceous, ciliate at apex. Inflorescence of racemose racemes, racemes 12-20 cm long, rather distant, stout, simple or divided below; rachis narrow, scabrid, slightlly flattened; pedicel bristled. Spikelets usually paired, turgid, numerous, crowded on one side, ca. 3.5 mm long, elliptic, glabrous, green or purplish; lower glume triangular, 1-veined; upper glume and lower lemma subequal, 5-veined; lower lemma always paleate; lower palea slightly longer than spikelet; upper lemma elliptic, obtuse, margins narrowly incurved, obscurely dotted or roughened; anther ca. 2 mm long.

Robust perennial. Culms stout, trailing and rooting freely from lower nodes, ascending to 2 m, 5–8 mm in diam., nodes densely villous. Leaf sheaths villous or glabrous; leaf blades broadly linear, 10–30 × 1–2 cm, thinly pilose or subglabrous; ligule membranous, 1–1.3 mm. Inflorescence axis 7–20 cm; racemes 10–20, 5–15 cm, single, paired or grouped; rachis narrow, winged, scabrous; spikelets paired or single in upper part of raceme, in untidy rows or sometimes on short secondary branchlets in lower part of raceme; pedicels usually setose. Spikelets elliptic, green or purplish, 2.5–3.5 mm, glabrous, acute; lower glume triangular, 1/4–1/3 spikelet length, 1-veined; upper glume 5-veined; upper lemma rugulose, apex obtuse. Fl. and fr. Aug–Nov.

Originally from Brazil, introduced and naturalized elsewhere. Taiwan, in open and shady areas, also in swampy places.

Forming a dense cover along streams and in other wet places, sometimes forming floating rafts. Fujian, Hong Kong, cultivated in Taiwan [tropical Africa and America].

Panicum muticum Forssk., Fl. Aegypt.-Arab. 20. 1775. Urochloa mutica (Forssk.) T.-Q. Nguyen, Novosti Sist. Vyss. Rast. 13: 13. 1966; Veldkamp, Blumea 41: 424. 1996.

Panicum muticum Forsskål, Fl. Aegypt.-Arab. 20. 1775; Brachiaria purpurascens (Raddi) Henrard; P. barbinode Trinius; P. purpurascens Raddi; Urochloa mutica (Forsskål) T. G. Nguyen.