FoI
Sticky Lovegrass
Share Foto info
Sticky Lovegrass
A Native Photo: Aarti Khale
Common name: Sticky Lovegrass
Botanical name: Eragrostis viscosa    Family: Poaceae (Grass family)
Synonyms: Eragrostis amabilis, Eragrostis strigosa, Poa viscosa

Sticky Lovegrass is a loosely clustered annual grass with erect stems up to 40 cm high, hairless at the nodes, with sticky glandular patches below the nodes. Leaf sheaths have sticky glandular patches below the collar; ligule a line of hairs. Leaves are linear, 4-10 cm long, flat or with rolled-in margins, hairless or scattered hairs, sometimes with a tuberculate base. Flower-panicles are ovate to narrowly oblong, 4-15 cm long, rather dense; flower-stalks 1.5-2 mm long, short and stiff. Spikelets are ovate-oblong, 1.5-4.5 mm long, lightly laterally compressed, 5-15-flowered; glumes nearly equal, 0.6-1.2 mm long, lightly keeled, keel thickened by a linear sticky yellow gland; lemmas oblong-elliptic in profile, 0.7-1.4 mm long, lightly keeled, membranous with distinct lateral nerves. Sticky Lovegrass is native to Tropical & S. Africa, S. Arabian Peninsula, Tropical Asia.

Identification credit: Manoj Chandran Photographed in Nasik, Maharashtra.

• Is this flower misidentified? If yes,