Notes
Found in North Africa, Western Asia, India, Indo-China, Malesia, Australasia, Pasific, North and South America. A common weed species widespread in tropics and
subtropics, high food value, fodder and forage, best grazed in mixture with other grasses, unpalatable when old, good fodder up to the time of flowering, young plants
grazed by stock, suitable as hay when mixed with legumes, it stands drought well. Distribution at Sulawesi
North: Gorontalo. Central: South of Palu, grassland just along Palu-river; Palu, 3-4 Km to NE, 0
53’ S 119 53’ E; Palu, Alt. 5 m, and 75 m. South: Bantaeng, near
the sea. Habitat
Grassland seasonally flooded, grassy plain, wasteland, sandy beaches, on lowlands and coastal areas, in dry regions at lower elevations.
Specimen examined
Hennipman 5032 BO; Meijer 9199 BO; Kjellberg 3015 BO; Eyma 1732 BO; Yoshida 885 BO; leg. ign. 15 BO; Kurniawan 124 WALL; Papa 170, 320
WALL; Lasut 935 WALL.
23. CYNODON L.C. Richard. nom. cons. Type: Cynodon dactylon L. Pers. Syn.
Pl. 1: 85. 1805. Capriola Adans. Fam. Pl. 2: 31, 352. 1763; .
Dactylon Vill. Hist. Pl. Dauphine 2: 69. 1787. Fibichia Koeler. Descr. Gram. 308. 1802; Contr. U.S. Natl. Herb. 41: 59-63.
2001.
From the Latin cynodon “teeth of a saw, canine tooth, having pairs of projecting teeth”, referring to the basal buds on the rhizomes, or to the spikes.
About 10 species, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australasia, America, Antarctica. Plants perennial, terete or compressed, mostly rhizomatous and stoloniferous, creeping
or spreading, herbaceous, leafy and much-branched, decumbent and rooting at nodes. Nodes glabrous. Internodes hollow. Auricle absent. Sheath smooth and rounded.
Ligule membrane-like and fringed or ciliate. Blades linear to filiform more or less opposite on the stolons. Plants bisexual, erect flowering shoots; terminal inflorescence
umbellate or spicate and digitate; rachis flat or semiterete; sessile spikelets strongly laterally and disarticulating above or between the glumes. Spikelets solitary and
secund; erect flowering shoots produced at the nodes; 1 bisexual floret. Glume 2, narrow, keeled and papery. Lemmas with a ciliate keel and awnless. Lodicule minute,
free and fleshy. Stamen 3. Ovary glabrous. Stigma 3, red. Caryopsis small and trigonous.
Ornamental, occasionally causing cyanide poisoning or often HCN poisonous, attractive inflorescence, vigorous, often sward-forming, weed species, native pasture
species, fodder grass, lawns, turf, playing fields, growing in sandy places, open habitats, grazed or weedy places, seshores, disturbed land, rainforest, roadsides.
Key to the Species
1.a. Perennial; rhizomatous; lower glume as long as upper glume; upper glume 0.7
times length of adjacent fertile lemma …………23.1. Cynodon dactylon
b. Annual; not rhizomatous; lower glume 0.8 length of upper glume; upper glume
0.8 times length of adjacent fertile lemma …..23.2. Cynodon radiatus
23.1.
Cynodon dactylon L. Pers. Syn. Pl. 1: 85. 1805.
Chloris paytensis Steud. Syn. Pl. Glumac. 1: 207. 1854. Cynodon occidentalis Willd. ex Steud. Nomencl. Bot. ed.2 1: 463. 1840.
Cynodon parviglumis Ohwi. Bot. Mag. Tokyo 55: 538. 1941. Cynodon pascuus Nees, Fl. Bras. Enum. Pl. 22: 425-426. 1829.
Cynodon portoricensis Willd. Ex Steud. Nomencl. Bot. ed.2 1: 463. 1940. Digitaria glumaepatula Steud. Miq. Fl. Ned. Ind. 3: 439. 1857.
Plants perennial, slender, creeping, or prostrate, and forming a dense mat, stoloniferous and rhizomatous. Culms 7-45 cm long, erect, or geniculate ascending.
Internodes flattened. Sheaths keeled and shiny. Ligule a ciliolate membrane, 0.3 mm long. Blades 4-13 cm by 2-4 mm long, flat, glaucous, the surface scaberulous,
sparsely hairy. Inflorescence composed of racemes. Racemes 4-6, 2-8 cm long, digitate, unilateral. Rachis flattened. Spikelet packing broadside to rachis, regular, 2-
rowed; sppressed, solitary. Fertile spikelets sessile, comprising 1 fertile floret, without rhachilla extensio; ovate, laterally compressed, 2 mm long, breaking up at maturity,
disarticulating below each floret. Glumes similar, persistent, shorter than spikelet, thinner than fertile lemma. Lower glume as long as upper glume, lanceolate,
herbaceous, 1-keeled, 1-nerved; lateral nerves absent, apex acute. Upper glume 0.7 times length of adjacent fertile lemma, lanceolate, herbaceous, 1-keeled, 1-nerved,
lateral nerves absent, apex acute. Florets: fertile lemma ovate, 2 mm long, laterally
compressed, cartilaginous, keeled, 3-nerved; lemma midnerve pubescent, apex acute. Palea 2-nerved, keels eciliate. Lodicule 2. Stamen 3. Caryopsis with adherent
pericarp, ellipsoid, laterally compressed.
Notes
Found in Northern Europe, Central Europe, North Africa, South Africa, Siberia, Western Asia, Arabia, China, eastern Asia, India, Indo-China, Malesia, Australia, New
Zealand, Pasific, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and Subantarctic islands. Ornamental when in flower, sacred to Hindus, in India tender leaves and shoots eaten, excellent fodder
grass, forage, good pasture species, relished by all classes of livestock, root edible, scaly rhizomes given to horses, a noxious weed of annual and perennial crops, highly
invasive, difficult to eradicate without herbicides, a valuable herbal medicinal, tea from roots for kidneys, a good medicine for skin diseases, in folk medicine used as a
diuretic and emollient, the fresh juice used as a snuff in epistaxis, numerous cultivars have been developed, withstands long periods of drought, widely planted for lawns
andor playing fields, groundcover, turf, useful for erosion control, sand binder for coastal districts, useful stabilizer or disturbed beach dunes, sometimes used to bind soil
embankments.
Distribution at Sulawesi
North: Manado, Alt. 5 m; Mts. Ambang, Alt. 1050 m. Central: Palu, Alt. 125 m. South: Makassar. Southeast: Kendari, Alt. 5 m.
Habitat
Usually found in wetlands and river edges, in riparian areas and in grasslands adjacent to streams and marshes, disturbed places, cultivated lands, bare damp ground,
alluvium, floodplain margin, along stream banks, in the understory of open woods, along sand dunes, coarse sand, on waste grounds, trampled areas, in lawns, along
roadsides, on roadside gravel, silty outwash area, on beach sand, uncultivated areas, on sandy wastes, overgrazed areas, in very poor soils.
Specimen examined
Beguin 58 BO, PTU 23 BO; Lasut 161, 940 WALL; Kurniawan 121 WALL; Papa 173, 174, 297, 331 WALL.
23.2. Cynodon radiatus Roth. Syst. Veg. 2: 241. 1817.
