M. nudiflora is an annual or perennial herb, 8-115 cm tall, with a basal leaf rosette, disappearing or absent in older plants, with one to several creeping leafy branches, being either erect, semi-erect, ascendant, or at the base. Leaves are alternately arranged, sessile, larger ones linear-lanceolate, smaller ones oblong-ovate, glabrous, or with sparsely-arranged trichomes or hairs, 1.7-28 or 1.7-45 cm x 5-25 mm, with a broad leaf base, acute apex, short leaf sheath, and villous. Roots are normal, not swollen. Inflorescences terminally- or axillary-arranged, either unbranched or with 2-3 branches, no large cucullate bracts;bracts 25-35 mm oblong-cucullate, rather thin, membranous, caducous, located at the base of 25-40 mm long, glabrous pedicels, sepals 3, green, oblong, obtuse, glabrous, 3.5-5.0 mm long, petals 3, oblong to ovate-oblong, obtuse, purplish to magenta in colour, 4.5-5.5 mm long. Stamens free, 2 fertile with densely long-hairy filaments and bluish-coloured anthers;staminoids 4, with long-bearded filaments, the 3 opposite the petals with thickened, 3-lobed, light yellow coloured top, the fourth much reduced in size. The ovary is glabrous. Fruits condensed, ellipsoid-globose, shortly acuminate, glabrous, 4-6 mm in diameter, 3-loculate, each cell with 1-2 seeds, rarely with more than 6 seeds per fruit. Seeds smooth to coarse reticulate, ribbed.
Related invasive species
- Murdannia nudiflora
Related Farm Practice
- Systems
- Plantations
- Light
Related location
- Sri Lanka
- Philippines
- South Africa
- United States
- Fiji
- Colombia
- Indonesia
- Malaysia
- Mexico
M. nudiflora is classified as one of the world's worst weeds by Holm et al. (1977), infesting no less than 16 crops in 23 countries. It is a major weed species in rice and other crops (Moody, 1989), and is a moderately invasive weed species both in agricultural crops and non-agricultural areas in South and South-east Asia (Waterhouse, 1993). Its special ability to root easily at the nodes, propagating clonally through cut stems and dispersal during tillage and land preparation make this weed difficult to control. This trait coupled with its ability to adapt and survive a wide ecological window of soil types, pH, moisture availability and soil drainage makes M. nudiflora a weed to watch for potential spread into new areas in near future, and a species under the 'alert list' by the Invasive Species Specialist Group. Oliveira Pellegrini et al. (2016) recognize M. nudiflora as one of two Murdannia species invasive in the Neotropics.
M. nudiflora is a principal weed of peanuts, lowland and upland rice, tea, and maize in Indonesia, Philippines and Sri Lanka (Soerdarsan et al., 1974;Baki and Md Khir, 1983;Soerjani et al., 1987;Pancho and Obien, 1995). It is a weed of rice in the eastern plains of Colombia (Bastidas-Lopez, 1996;Plaza and Forero, 1998), bananas, citrus, sugarcane, vegetables, rice, maize and coffee in Mexico (Holm et al., 1977), pineapples in Hawaii, Indonesia, South Africa, Malaysia and the Philippines (Holm et al., 1977;Pancho and Obien, 1995;Baki et al., 1997), and taro in Fiji and Hawaii (Holm et al., 1977). Galinato et al. (1999) reported widespread occurrence of the weed in teak, tea, oil palm, chincona, cotton and coffee plantations, and in arable lands. In the United States, it has historically been a problematic weed in turfgrass systems, but it has become increasingly more common in North Carolina in cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) and soyabean (Glycine max) plantations (Wilson et al., 2006).