Pull And Be Damned

Paspalum lividum Trin.; Schlecht. I^innaea 26 : 383. 1853
A glabrous perennial with flat leaf-blades and glabrous bright-green elliptic spikelets which are much compressed. Stems 6-10 dm. tall; leaf-sheaths compressed, keeled, smooth, glabrous, except on the margins; blades 3 dm. long or less, 3-5 mm. wide, more or less pubescent on the upper sturface; racemes 3-7, erect or ascending, 2.5-5 cm. long, the rachis, which is often setiferous on the margins, about 1.5 mm. wide; spikelets in pairs, bright-green, often tinged with purple, a^out 2.5 mm. long and 1.5 mm. wide, elliptic, acute or acutish, the first scale wanting, the second and third scales 3-nerved, the fruiting scale yellowish-white and only slightly convex in cross-section.
Type locality : Hacienda de La Laguna, near Jalapa, Vera Cruz.
Distribution : Louisiana to Mexico and Guatemala ; Cuba ; also in tropical South America.

Annuals, Terrestrial, not aquatic, Ste ms nodes swollen or brittle, Stems erect or ascending, Stems caespitose, tufted, or clustered, Stems terete, round in cross section, or polygonal, Stem internodes solid or spongy, Stem internodes hollow, Stems with inflorescence less than 1 m tall, Stems, culms, or scapes exceeding basal leaves, Leaves mostly cauline, Leaves conspicuously 2-ranked, distichous, Leaves sheathing at base, Leaf sheath mostly open, or loose, Leaf sheath smooth, glabrous, Leaf sheath hairy, hispid or prickly, Leaf sheath and blade differentiated, Leaf blades linear, Leaf blades 2-10 mm wide, Leaf blades mostly flat, Leaf blades mostly glabrous, Leaf blades more or less hairy, Leaf blades scabrous, roughened, or wrinkled, Ligule present, Ligule an unfringed eciliate membrane, Inflorescence terminal, Inflorescence solitary, with 1 spike, fascicle, glomerule, head, or cluster per stem or culm, Inflorescence a panicle with narrowly racemose or spicate branches, Inflorescence branches more than 10 to numerous, Inflorescence branches 1-sided, Peduncle or rachis scabrous or pubescent, often with long hairs, Rachis dilated, flat, central axis to which spikelets are attached, Rachis winged, Flowers bisexual, Spikelets pedicellate, Spikelets dorsally compressed or terete, Spikelet less than 3 mm wide, Spikelets with 1 fertile floret, Spikelets with 2 florets, Spikelet with 1 fertile floret and 1-2 sterile florets, Spikelets paired at rachis nodes, Spikelets all alike and fertille, Spikelets bisexual, Spikelets disarticulating below the glumes, Spikelets secund, in rows on one side of rachis, Rachilla or pedicel glabrous, Glumes present, empty bracts, Glumes 1 clearly present, the other greatly reduced or absent, Glumes distinctly unequal, Glumes equal to or longer than adjacent lemma, Glume equal to or longer than spikelet, Glumes 3 nerved, Lemma similar in texture to glumes, Lemma becoming indurate, enclosing palea and caryopsis, Lemma 3 nerved, Lemma 5-7 nerved, Lemma glabr ous, Lemma apex truncate, rounded, or obtuse, Lemma awnless, Lemma margins inrolled, tightly covering palea and caryopsis, Lemma straight, Palea present, well developed, Palea shorter than lemma, Stamens 3, Styles 2-fid, deeply 2-branched, Stigmas 2, Fruit - caryopsis.