''Digitaria californica'' is a species of

grass Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns an ...

known by the common name Arizona cottontop. It is native to the Americas, where it can be found in the southwestern United States, Mexico, Central America, and South America.''Digitaria californica''.
Grass Manual Treatment. This perennial grass forms a clump of stems reaching up to a meter in height. The branching root system can reach one meter deep. There are no

rhizome In botany and dendrology, a rhizome (; , ) is a modified subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and shoots from its nodes. Rhizomes are also called creeping rootstalks or just rootstalks. Rhizomes develop from axillary buds and grow hori ...

s or

stolon In biology, stolons (from Latin '' stolō'', genitive ''stolōnis'' – "branch"), also known as runners, are horizontal connections between organisms. They may be part of the organism, or of its skeleton; typically, animal stolons are external s ...

s. The leaf sheaths around the stems can be very hairy to woolly. The leaves are usually short and narrow. The

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed o ...

is a dense, narrow

panicle A panicle is a much-branched inflorescence. (softcover ). Some authors distinguish it from a compound spike inflorescence, by requiring that the flowers (and fruit) be pedicellate (having a single stem per flower). The branches of a panicle are of ...

containing pairs of woolly-haired spikelets.Walsh, Roberta A. 1993
''Digitaria californica''. In: Fire Effects Information System, [Online
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fire Sciences Laboratory This plant grows in a number of habitat types, including desert scrub and shrublands, shrubsteppe, and savanna. In the desert it sometimes grows beneath mesquites where it thrives in the local nutrients. It tolerates varying precipitation amounts and survives easily in drought conditions, becoming dormant at times, then growing quickly when rain returns. Much of its growth occurs in the summer, after the spring and summer rain cycles. This species is a preferred grass for livestock such as cattle. It tolerates high

grazing In agriculture, grazing is a method of animal husbandry whereby domestic livestock are allowed outdoors to roam around and consume wild vegetations in order to convert the otherwise indigestible (by human gut) cellulose within grass and other ...

activity, but not

overgrazing Overgrazing occurs when plants are exposed to intensive grazing for extended periods of time, or without sufficient recovery periods. It can be caused by either livestock in poorly managed agricultural applications, game reserves, or nature res ...

References

External links

USDA Plants Profile for ''Digitaria californica'' (Arizona cottontop)Calflora Database: ''Digitaria californica'' (Arizona cottontop)Dallisgrass Vs Crabgrass - DifferencesThe Nature ConservancyCalPhotos Photo Gallery

References

External links

Further reading