Common name
Umbrella Grass
Spreading Umbrella Grass

Derivation
Digitaria Haller, Hist. Stirp. Helv. 2: 244 (1768). From the Latin digitus (finger), alluding to radiating inflorescence branches.

divaricatissima- from the Latin divarico (spread out) and -issima (most). Panicle large and diffuse.

Published in
Bull. Misc. Inform. 314 (1923).

Common synonyms
Digitaria macractinia (Benth.) Hughes

Habit
Perennial, tufted. Stolons absent. Basal leaf sheaths thickened and forming a bulb, pubescent or villous. Culms erect or geniculately ascending, 15–60 cm tall, 2–5-noded. Mid-culm internodes glabrous. Mid-culm nodes glabrous. Lateral branches simple or sparsely branched. Leaf-sheaths glabrous on surface or pubescent or hirsute. Leaf-sheath auricles absent. Ligule an eciliate membrane, 2–3 mm long. Leaf-blades flat, 4–22 cm long, 2.5–7 mm wide. Leaf-blade surface scabrous, glabrous or pubescent. Leaf-blade margins scabrous.

Inflorescence
Inflorescence subdigitate, with racemose branches. Peduncle fracturing. Racemes 4–10, radiating, unilateral, 8–35 cm long. Central inflorescence axis 0–14 cm long. Rhachis wingless, angular. Spikelet packing distant. Raceme-bases filiform, 10–90 mm long.

Spikelets
Spikelets in pairs. Pedicels unequal, 0.5–2 mm long, scabrous, tip cupuliform. Fertile spikelets 2-flowered, comprising 1 fertile floret, lower floret sterile, upper fertile, without rhachilla extension, lanceolate, dorsally compressed, acute or acuminate, 3.2–5 mm long, falling entire. Rhachilla internodes elongated between glumes.

Glumes
Glumes dissimilar, thinner than fertile lemma. Lower glume ovate, 0.4–0.75 mm long, 10–25% of length of spikelet, membranous, 1-nerved. Lower glume lateral nerves absent. Lower glume apex truncate or obtuse. Upper glume lanceolate, dorsally convex in profile, 1.7–4 mm long, 100% of length of spikelet, membranous, 3(–5)-nerved. Upper glume lateral nerves ribbed. Upper glume surface villous, hairy between nerves. Upper glume apex acute.

Florets
Basal sterile floret 1, without significant palea. Lemma of lower sterile floret lanceolate, 3.1–4.5 mm long, 100% of length of spikelet, membranous, 5–7-nerved, ribbed, with unevenly spaced nerves, with nerves free at apex, villous, acute. Fertile lemma elliptic, 2.9–4.5 mm long, cartilaginous, much thinner on margins, dark brown. Lemma margins flat, covering most of palea. Lemma apex acute, mucronate. Palea cartilaginous.

Continental Distribution:
Australasia.

Australian Distribution:
Queensland, New South Wales.

Queensland: Burke, North Kennedy, South Kennedy, Port Curtis, Leichhardt, Burnett, Wide Bay, Darling Downs, Moreton, Mitchell, Warrego, Maranoa. New South Wales: North Coast, Central Coast, Central Tablelands, North-Western Slopes, Central-Western Slopes, South-Western Slopes, North-Western Plains, South-Western Plains, North Far Western Plains.

Classification. (GPWG 2001):
Panicoideae: Paniceae

Notes
Native. In dry sclerophyll forests, tropical and subtropical sub-humid woodlands, temperate sub-humid woodlands, and semi-arid shrub woodlands. Flowers mostly Nov.–Apr. A morphologically diverse species.

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