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A. donax is a tall, erect, perennial cane- or reed-like grass. One of the largest herbaceous grasses, it can grow to 2-10 m tall. Its root structure is very strong, with the fleshy, almost bulbous, creeping rootstocks (rhizomes) forming compact bundles from which grow the fibrous roots, penetrating deep into the soil. The horizontal rhizomes give rise to many-stemmed, hollow, cane-like clumps allowing it to form large colonies many metres across. These tough, individual stems or culms are divided by partitions at the nodes like in bamboo, each node 12-30 cm in length and can reach diameters of 1-4 cm with walls 2-7 mm thick. They commonly branch during the second year of growth, rarely multiple, just single lateral branches from nodes. The outer tissue of the stem is of a silicaceous nature, hard and brittle with a smooth glossy surface that turns pale yellow when the culm is fully mature. The pale, blue-green leaves clasp the stem broadly with a heart-shaped, hairy-tufted base, 2-6 cm wide at the base and tapering to a fine tip, up to 70 cm or more in length. The leaves are arranged alternately throughout the culm and very distinctly two-ranked, in a single plane. The culms can remain green throughout the year but often fade with semi-dormancy during the winter or in droughts. The flowers are borne in large plume-like panicles, 30-65 cm, at the upper tips of stems between March and September and are closely packed in a cream to brown-coloured cluster. The spikelets, flowering units comprised of one or more florets enclosed by two bracts or glumes, are several flowered, approximately 12 mm long with florets becoming successively smaller. The segmented central axis of the spikelet, the rachilla, is glabrous and dis-articulates above the glumes and between the florets. The more or less unequal glumes are 3-nerved membranous, narrow, slender, pointed and as long as the spikelets. Lemmas, the larger, outer, bract which, along with the palea, serves to contain the florets held within, are thin, 3-nerved and covered with fine, soft hair. They are narrowed upwards with the nerves ending in slender teeth.

Related invasive species

  • Arundo donax

Related Farm Practice

  • Soil
  • Cropland
  • Rootstocks
  • Invasive species

Related location

  • Tanzania
  • Puerto Rico
  • Uruguay
  • Argentina
  • South Africa
  • Dominican Republic
  • Egypt
  • Chile
Impact

A. donax is an aggressive species with an ability to reproduce quickly, allowing it to out-compete native plant species, and has established itself as one of the primary threats to native riparian habitats in its introduced range, dramatically altering ecological and successional processes and altering habitats towards dense, monotypic stands up to 8 m tall. It is listed as one of the 100 world’s worst invasive alien species (ISSG, 2011). This species represent a serious concern in arid and semiarid habitats because it outcompete native vegetation in the access to soil-water. It uses more water than native plants, lowering groundwater tables. A. donax is highly flammable and can change fire regimes in invaded areas (USDA-ARS, 2014).

Has Cabi datasheet ID
1940
Hosts

A. donax is not usually a weed of crops, rather tending to out-compete and displace native vegetation in riparian habitats. However, it has been reported as invasive in pasture/cropland in South Africa, Tanzania, Egypt, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic (ISSG, 2007;Randall, 2012).

Oss tagged
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