Blood-red foxglove

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Blood-red foxglove
Blood-red foxglove (Digitaria sanguinalis)

Blood-red foxglove ( Digitaria sanguinalis )

Systematics
Order : Sweet grass (Poales)
Family : Sweet grasses (Poaceae)
Subfamily : Panicoideae
Tribe : Paniceae
Genre : Fingergrass ( Digitaria )
Type : Blood-red foxglove
Scientific name
Digitaria sanguinalis
( L. ) Scop.

The blood-red fingergrass ( Digitaria sanguinalis ), also called blood fingergrass , is a plant species within the sweet grass family (Poaceae). Today it is spread almost worldwide.

etymology

The generic name Digitaria comes from the Latin from dígitus = finger . This refers to the characteristic finger-shaped inflorescence. The type epithet sanguinalis is also of Latin origin from sánguis , - inis = blood and refers to the often blood-red color of the above-ground parts of the plant.

description

Illustration of Digitaria sanguinalis (left) from Johann Georg Sturm , Germany's Flora , 1796

Appearance and leaf

The blood-red foxglove is a deciduous, annual herbaceous plant and reaches heights of between 10 and 30, sometimes up to 80 centimeters. The above-ground parts of the plant are overrun in purple. It has a loose habit with rooting, prostrate, branched and kinky stalks . Your stalks are bearded hairy or bald.

The alternate leaves are divided into leaf sheath and leaf blade. The ligule are truncated and up to 2 millimeters long. The leaf sheaths are more densely or sparsely ciliate and the upper sheaths are long hairy. The flat leaf blades are narrow-lanceolate with a length of 3 to 10 centimeters and a width of up to 8 millimeters with a rounded base and a long, pointed upper end. The edge of the leaf blade is rough, ciliate or glabrous. In the ciliate fingergrass ( Digitaria sanguinalis subsp. Pectiniformis ) the leaf margins have whitish nerves.

Inflorescence and flower

The ears are 5 to 15 centimeters long and spread like four to eight fingers at the end of the stalk ( synflorescence ). The spikelets are lanceolate and pointed with a length of 2.8 to 3.3 millimeters. The lemmas of the fertile single flowers are dark brown. The upper glumes of the ciliate millet are bristly ciliate. On the lemmas of the lower individual flowers, there are short, soft and rigid, bristly longer hairs standing on warts. The lemmas of the lower single flowers of the common blood-red foxglove are more or less softly hairy. The upper glume is only one and a half times as long as the lemma. The flowering period extends from August to October.

The number of chromosomes is 2n = 36.

ecology

The blood-red fingergrass is a summer annual therophyte. The blood-red finger millet is a warmth germ and a C4 plant . It is rooted up to 35 centimeters deep.

The diaspores are subject to the spread of ants by the genus Tetramorium , besides that, the fruits enclosed by the husks spread as rain swarms, and humans also spread as a cultural companion.

Occurrence

The wide natural range of the blood-red finger millet lies in southern Europe and North Africa and extends east into temperate and tropical Asia to Malesia . The blood-red finger millet is now widespread worldwide. It is a neophyte in North and South America, South Africa, and Australia . It is an archaeophyte in Central Europe .

The blood-red foxglove thrives in herbaceous fields in gardens, grows in fields and in vineyards, on railway areas and sometimes in pavement joints. It prefers dry, nutrient-rich, often lime-poor and mostly sandy soils . It is a character species of the class Chenopodietea, but it also occurs in societies of the order Sisymbrietalia or the association Polygonion avicularis.

As a host plant for the root nematode Pratylenchus penetrans , it is an undesirable weed, especially in organic farming.

Subspecies

One can distinguish between two subspecies :

  • Common blood-red foxglove ( Digitaria sanguinalis (L.) Scop. Subsp. Sanguinalis )
  • Eyelashes crabgrass ( Digitaria sanguinalis (L.) Scop. Subsp. Pectiniformis Henrard )

use

The blood millet, also known colloquially as Himmeltau or Manna , used to be a cultivated plant. Similar to fonio millet (West Africa) or millet ( Setaria italica ), it was also used as food. After husking, the kernels were mashed and boiled to a sweet pulp with milk or water.

Digitaria sanguinalis is also cultivated as forage grass, nowadays mainly in the USA (brab grass or crab grass).

photos

  • Habitus

  • Habitus

  • Ligule

  • Ears of wheat

  • inflorescence

  • The spikelets sit individually on the ears.

  • Each spikelet has a lower (Glu '= gluma) and an upper glume (Glu ") at the base. The lower lemma (Lem' = Lemma) belongs to a sterile flower. The upper, fertile flower is covered by an upper lemma (Lem") and a palea (Palea).

  • In 'Digitaria sanguinalis subsp. pectiniformis' the spikelets are conspicuously ciliate.

literature

  • Henning Haeupler, Thomas Muer: picture atlas of the fern and flowering plants of Germany . Ed .: Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (=  The fern and flowering plants of Germany . Volume 2 ). Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart (Hohenheim) 2000, ISBN 3-8001-3364-4 .
  • CE Hubbard: Grasses - Description, Distribution, Uses. Ulmer Verlag, Stuttgart, 1985. ISBN 3-8001-2537-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Blood-red foxglove. In: FloraWeb.de.
  2. ↑ a b c Erich Oberdorfer : Plant-sociological excursion flora for Germany and neighboring areas . 8th edition. Verlag Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-8001-3131-5 . Page 265.
  3. ↑ a b Ruprecht Düll , Herfried Kutzelnigg : Pocket dictionary of the plants of Germany and neighboring countries. The most common Central European species in portrait . 7th, corrected and enlarged edition. Quelle & Meyer, Wiebelsheim 2011, ISBN 978-3-494-01424-1 .
  4. ↑ Rafaël Govaerts (ed.): Digitaria sanguinalis. In: World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP) - The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew . Retrieved November 20, 2016.

Web links

Commons : Blood red foxglove ( Digitaria sanguinalis )  - album with pictures, videos and audio files