Digitaria villosa

Digitaria villosa (Walt.) Pers.

Common Names: Shaggy Crab Grass

Family: Poaceae

Habit: Digitaria villosa grows as clumping perennial to 150 cm in height when flowering. The leaves are arranged alternately to 25 cm in length (usually shorter) with a basal sheath extending along the stem. At the point of divergence of the leaf sheath to the leaf blade is a small ciliate ligule. The leaves are parallel veined. The leaf and sheath are pubescent.

The zygomorphic flowers are arranged in a panicle made of appressed spikelets.  At the base of each spikelet are 2 yellow brown, ciliate structures called glumes. The first glume extremely small or absent and the second large. In each spikelet there are flowering structures each is subtended by 2 additional ciliate edged structures (lemma and palea).  There are two florets with the lower one sterile and the upper fertile with 1 stamen and a superior ovary each with a single locule and seed.  The fruit is a caryopsis.

Habitat: Digitaria villosa grows in Dunes and Human Altered environments (yards, old fields).

Distribution: Digitaria villosa occurs through the island groupings in the Lucayan Archipelago, the Caribbean, and North and Central America.

Medicinal/Cultural/Economic usage: Digitaria villosa is not known to be used medicinally in the Lucayan Archipelago.