Gophertail lovegrass

Eragrostis ciliaris, the gophertail lovegrass, is a small tufted annual grass of the Poaceae usually 10-50 cm tall, with slender, erect to ascending or geniculate culms branching from the base. The leaf blades are flat or loosely involute, 2-12 cm long and 1-4 mm wide, glabrous to scabrous and often with scattered long marginal hairs near the ligule, which is a short ciliate rim. The inflorescence is a dense, cylindrical to narrowly oblong, spike-like panicle 1-10 cm long, frequently interrupted at the base, with strongly contracted branches bearing many crowded spikelets. Spikelets are 2-3.5 mm long, ovate, laterally compressed, containing 6-11 closely imbricate florets, and conspicuously ciliate along the margins of the lemmas with long white hairs that give the panicle a soft, feathery appearance. Glumes are unequal, 1-veined and shorter than the lemmas. Lemmas are ovate, keeled, 3-veined and prominently fringed with cilia 0.5-1 mm long; paleas persist on the rachilla after the caryopses disperse. Native to the Old World tropics, it is now a pantropical weed of roadsides, fields and sandy disturbed ground.