Family |
Poaceae
Cynosurus echinatus
L.
Cynosurus echinatus L.
(First published in Sp. Pl.: 72 (1753); Nouvelle Flore du Liban et de la Syrie, vol. 1; 1966; syn. Falona echinata (L.) Dumort.)
• Life-form & habit : Annual therophyte; culms erect to ascending, slender, 10–60 cm tall, usually tufted, glabrous or slightly scabrid below the inflorescence.
• Leaves : Leaf blades linear, flat or slightly folded, 2–15 cm × 1–5 mm, green, glabrous to scabrid; sheaths smooth or slightly rough; ligule membranous, short to moderately long, truncate to acute.
• Inflorescence & flowers : Panicle dense, ovoid to oblong, spike-like, strongly unilateral and bristly; fertile spikelets mixed with conspicuous sterile, pectinate bracts, giving the inflorescence its spiny appearance; florets small, greenish to purplish.
• Fruit : Caryopsis enclosed within the lemma and palea; dispersal aided by the rigid, awned and bristly spikelet structures.
• Phenology : Flowers from March to June; fruiting from April to July.
• Habitat & elevation : Dry grasslands, open scrub, fallow fields, roadsides, rocky slopes and disturbed ground; from sea level to montane zones.
• Lebanese distribution : Widespread in Lebanon, especially in coastal, lower montane and disturbed habitats.
• Native range : Albania, Algeria, Azores, Baleares, Bulgaria, Canary Is., Corse, Cyprus, East Aegean Is., Egypt, France, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Kriti, Krym, Lebanon-Syria, Madeira, Morocco, North Caucasus, NW. Balkan Pen., Palestine, Portugal, Romania, Sardegna, Saudi Arabia, Selvagens, Sicilia, Spain, Switzerland, Transcaucasus, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Türkiye, Türkiye-in-Europe, Ukraine, West Himalaya.
• Diagnostic remarks : Easily recognised by its dense, unilateral, spiny-looking inflorescence with sterile pectinate spikelets; separated from other annual grasses by the bristly ovoid head and the mixture of fertile and sterile spikelet structures.