Dactyloctenium aristatum Link

A desert and sea-shore grass of sand and exposed coral outcrops. It is best distinguished from Dactyloctenium aegyptium by its short broad spikes clustered together in a compact head, the conspicuously pointed lemmas which give the inflorescence a “spiky” appearance and the granular, rather than rugose, grain. Some specimens, e.g. Sultanul Abedin 4003 are rather atypical, with a more robust stoloniferous habit and longer narrower spikes than usual and may well represent introgression with Dactyloctenium aegyptium.

Sprawling tufted annual; culms slender, 4-38 cm high, geniculately ascending from a decumbent base, often rooting at the lower nodes. Leaf-blades flat, 1-13 cm long, 1.5-7 mm wide, usually conspicuously papillose-hispid, sharply acuminate. Inflorescence compact, composed of (2)4-7(-11) oblong to broadly oblong spikes 0.8-1.8 (rarely to 2.6) cm long clustered together in a dense, often subglobose head. Spikelets 3-5-flowered, broadly ovate, 4.1-5.2 mm long; glumes subequal, 1.7-2.3 mm long, the lower narrowly lanceolate-oblong in profile, the keel thick, scabrid and often narrowly winged, the upper narrowly elliptic-oblong in profile, the keel extended into a stout awn shorter than or equalling the glume; lemmas lanceolate to narrowly ovate in profile (3-)3.34.3 mm long, acuminate, the keel concave, thick and scabrid above the middle and extended into a stout mucro up to 1 mm long; palea-keels winged; anthers 0.3-0.5 mm long. Grain 0.75-1.1 mm long, broadly elliptic to obovate in profile, dome-shaped across the top, finely granular or granular-striate.

Distribution: Pakistan (Sind, Baluchistan & Punjab); Kenya north to Sudan and eastwards through Arabia to India.

Dactyloctenium aristatum là một loài thực vật có hoa trong họ Hòa thảo. Loài này được Link mô tả khoa học đầu tiên năm 1827.