''Eremochloa ophiuroides'', or centipedegrass, is a species of grass in the family
Poaceae
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 ...
. Used as a warm season
lawn grass
A lawn is an area of soil-covered land planted with grasses and other durable plants such as clover which are maintained at a short height with a lawnmower (or sometimes grazing animals) and used for aesthetic and recreational purposes. L ...
, it forms thick
sod
Sod, also known as turf, is the upper layer of soil with the grass growing on it that is often harvested into rolls.
In Australian and British English, sod is more commonly known as ''turf'', and the word "sod" is limited mainly to agricult ...
s and spreads by
stolons
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 ...
. It is medium to light green in color and has a coarse texture with short upright seedhead stems that grow to about 3-5 inches. Native to southern China, it was introduced to the United States in 1916
and has since become one of the common grasses in the southeastern states and Hawai'i. It can also be considered a weed.
Cultivation
Centipedegrass is a low maintenance grass.
It requires infrequent mowing.
[Aaron Patton and John Boyd]
"Centipedegrass."
FSA6120. University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture.
Archived
on 23 March 2012.) Centipedegrass has medium shade tolerance and limited traffic tolerance.
[J. T. Brosnan and J. Deputy]
"Centipedegrass."
TM-14. College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources. University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. March 2008. Retrieved 25 January 2023.
It is shallow rooted
and has poor drought tolerance.
Centipedegrass survives in mild climates without several hard freezes. With light freezes it will turn brown but recover and re-green as the temperature rises. It does well in sandy and acidic soils.
Centipede grass has low fertilization requirements.
References
External links
Centipede Lawns- The University of Georgia College of Agricultural & Environmental Sciences
Panicoideae
Flora of Asia
Lawn grasses
{{Panicoideae-stub