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Support the Flora of the Southeastern US

2024 has been a banner year for making the best flora we can imagine. We've created:
With financial support from people like you, we are aiming even higher in 2025. Together we can accomplish all this: Vote on our 2025 priorities
  • Add Global Conservation Ranks (GRanks) vote
  • Professional graphic keys (polyclaves) to individual families/genera vote
  • 2 new FloraQuest apps: Florida & Mid-South vote
  • Image overlays highlighting diagnostic characters with arrows vote
  • iNaturalist integration in FloraQuest vote
Write-in vote: vote
We've set a goal of recruiting 200 ongoing supporters to donate $15 or more each month in 2025. Please help us reach this goal and make next year's flora even better:

Click the number at the start of a key lead to highlight both that lead and its corresponding lead. Click again to show only the two highlighted leads. Click a third time to return to the full key with the selected leads still highlighted.

Key to Urochloa

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1 Spikelets with evident cross-venation throughout (cross veins not only confined to distal 1/2 of upper glumes or first lemmas); spikelets yellowish
1 Spikelets with longitudinal veins only, the upper glumes without cross-venation or cross-venation only on distal 1/2 of upper glumes; spikelets green or greenish-purple.
  2 Spikelets 1.8-2.2 mm long; plants annual and forming sprawling mats
  2 Spikelets 2.4-6 mm long; plants annual or perennial, erect or decumbent and rooting at nodes but not typically mat-forming.
    3 Pedicels bearing 1-5 long, conspicuous hairs.
      4 Spikelets solitary.
        5 Plants cespitose perennials; culm internodes with papillose-based hairs; secondary inflorescence branches present; lower glumes with 1-3 rigid hairs
        5 Plants erect to decumbent annuals (often rooting at lower nodes); culm internodes glabrous or sparsely pubescent; secondary inflorescence branches rarely present; lower glumes lacking rigid hairs
      4 Spikelets paired.
          6 Spikelets 4.8-6 mm long
          6 Spikelets 2.5-4 mm long.
             7 Spikelets primarily green.
               8 Panicle branches glabrous to pubescent, with or without some papillose-based hairs; spikelets 2.5-3.4 mm long; upper glumes without cross venation distally; culm nodes pubescent
               8 Primary branches of panicles densely pubescent with papillose-based hairs; spikelets 3.2-4 mm long; upper glumes with evident cross venation distally; culm nodes glabrous or hispid
    3 Pedicels glabrous, scabrous or sometimes short-pilose, but not bearing long, conspicuous hairs.
                 9 Margins of upper glumes and lower lemmas uniformly pilose-fringed
                 9 Margins of upper glumes and lower lemmas glabrous or, if pilose, then the basal hairs shorter than the distal hairs (as in U. piligera).
                   10 Spikelets 2.9-3.8 mm long.
                     11 Spikelets paired, in 2-4 rows, the apices abruptly acuminate; glumes not spaced apart; leaf blades 7-20 mm wide
                     11 Spikelets solitary, in 2 rows, the apices acute or rounded; glumes 0.3-0.5 mm apart; leaf blades 3-10 mm wide
                   10 Spikelets 3.8-6 mm long.
                       12 Upper half of second glume and first lemma with evident transverse veins connecting the longitudinal veins
                       12 Upper half of second glume and first lemma without evident transverse veins.
                          13 Spikelets glabrous, 4.5-6 mm long; panicles 6-25 cm long; sheaths with papillose-based hairs
                          13 Spikelets usually pubescent, 3.8-4.9 mm long; panicles 3-12 cm long; sheaths lacking papillose-based hairs