Digitaria stricta Roth

This species is allied to Digitaria ternata, which has bigger spikelets with a longer upper glume.

Digitaria stricta is a fairly uniform species, recognizable by its slender, tufted habit and small spikelets with exposed, dark upper floret ringed by setae from the pedicel apex. However, the spikelet pubescence is variable, ranging from subglabrous to conspicuously villous forms, and the small upper glume may sometimes be only vestigial or even occasionally completely absent. Two extreme variants from the typical plant have been given varietal status, as follows.

This is a relatively uniform species except for the upper glume. This may be absent (var. denudate) or, when present, varying from a minute glabrous scale to clavate-hairy and up to (sometimes exceeding) one-third the length of the spikelet. The indumentum of the spikelet varies from dense to sparse (var. glabrescens), but the spikelet is very rarely completely glabrous.

Annual. Culms tufted, slender, erect, 20–40 cm tall. Leaf sheaths loose, keeled, glabrous or papillose-pilose, especially at mouth; leaf blades linear, soft, 5–20 × 0.3–0.5 cm, adaxial surface tuberculate-hispid in lower 1/3, apex finely acuminate; ligule 1–1.5 mm. Inflorescence subdigitate, axis 1–3 cm; racemes 2–8 or more, 5–12 cm; spikelets ternate; rachis triquetrous, narrowly winged, margins scabrous; pedicels scabrous, tips slightly dilated with overtopping spicules up to 1 mm. Spikelets elliptic, 1.2–1.4 mm, hairs clavate, rarely glabrous; lower glume absent; upper glume variable, 1/4–1/2 as long as spikelet, rarely vestigial or absent, veinless or 1–3-veined; lower lemma slightly shorter than spikelet, 3–5-veined, intervein spaces and margins sparsely pubescent to villous; upper lemma chestnut brown to purplish black with a paler, apiculate, slightly protruding apex. Anthers ca. 0.3 mm. Fl. and fr. autumn.

Tufted annual; sulms up to 40 cm high (110 cm in exceptional specimens), erect. Leaf-blades 4-15(30) cm long, 26 mm wide, the blades and sheaths ± hirsute with tubercle-based hairs. Inflorescence composed of 3-6(17) racemes, these subdigitate or arranged along an axis 1-3(5) cm long; racemes 4-14 cm long, the spikelets ternate (at least in the middle of the raceme) on a narrowly winged rhachis with triquetrous midrib; pedicels narrowly winged, scabrid, slightly dilated at the tip with a crown of stiff hairs exceeding the tip and sometimes up to 1 mm long. Spikelets obtuse, oblong, elliptic or narrowly obovate, 1.1-1.4(-1.6) mm long; lower glume 0; upper glume 0 or very short to about one-third the length of the spikelet and 3-nerved, covered all over with short clavate hairs or rarely glabrous; lower lemma as long as the spikelet, (3-)5-nerved, all interspaces with a sparse to very dense covering of clavate hairs; fruit ellipsoid, apiculate, chestnut brown to black (very rarely pallid) at maturity.

Fujian, Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan [Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka].

Distribution: Pakistan (Punjab, N.W.F.P. & Kashmir); Nepal, India, Burma and Sri Lanka; a single record for Oman.

Fl. & Fr. Per.: August-October.

Grasslands; below 1800 m.