Common name
Pangola Grass
Digit Grass
Woolly Finger Grass

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

eriantha- from the Greek erion (wool) and anthos (flower). With woolly glumes, lemmas or awns.

Published in
Allg. Bot. Z. Syst. 12: 468 (1829).

Common synonyms
Digitaria pentzii Stent
Digitaria decumbens Stent

Habit Perennial, tufted. Cataphylls present. Stolons absent or present. Basal leaf sheaths sparsely hairy, persistent and investing base of culm, with compacted dead sheaths. Culms erect or geniculately ascending or decumbent, 40–120 cm tall, 5–7-noded. Mid-culm internodes glabrous. Mid-culm nodes brown, glabrous or pubescent. Leaf-sheaths scaberulous, glabrous on surface or pilose, with tubercle-based hairs. Leaf-sheath auricles absent. Ligule a fringed membrane, 2–4 mm long. Leaf-blades flat or involute, 5–20 cm long, 2–4(–7) mm wide. Leaf-blade surface scaberulous or scabrous, glabrous. Leaf-blade margins scabrous.

Inflorescence
Inflorescence digitate, with racemose branches. Racemes 3–10, in several whorls, erect, unilateral, 5–20 cm long. Rhachis narrowly winged, angular, 0.5 mm wide, smooth or scabrous on surface, scabrous on margins. Spikelet packing imbricate.

Spikelets
Spikelets in pairs. Pedicels terete or angular, unequal, 0.5–3 mm long, scabrous, tip widened. Fertile spikelets 2-flowered, comprising 1 fertile floret, lower floret sterile, upper fertile, without rhachilla extension, oblong, dorsally compressed, 2.2–3.5 mm long, falling entire. Rhachilla internodes brief up to lowest fertile floret.

Glumes
Glumes dissimilar, thinner than fertile lemma. Lower glume ovate, 0.2–0.5 mm long, 10% of length of spikelet, membranous, 0-nerved. Lower glume margins ciliate. Lower glume apex acute or acuminate. Upper glume oblong, dorsally convex in profile, 0.9–2 mm long, 50–66% of length of spikelet, membranous, 3–5-nerved. Upper glume surface pubescent. Upper glume apex acute.

Florets
Basal sterile floret 1, without significant palea. Lemma of lower sterile floret oblong, 3–3.2 mm long, 100% of length of spikelet, membranous, 5–7-nerved, with nerves free at apex, smooth, pubescent or pubescent and setose, ciliate on margins, acute. Fertile lemma oblong, 2–3 mm long, cartilaginous, much thinner on margins, yellow or light brown. Lemma surface striate. Lemma margins flat, covering most of palea. Lemma apex acute or apiculate. Palea cartilaginous.

Continental Distribution:
Africa, Australasia, Pacific, South America.

Australian Distribution:
Queensland: Cook, North Kennedy, South Kennedy, Port Curtis, Leichhardt, Burnett, Wide Bay, Darling Downs, Moreton.

Classification. (GPWG 2001):
Panicoideae: Paniceae

Notes
Introduced. Flowers Dec.

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