Help us maintain this website and keep it free and open for our community of scientists, students, and conservation managers, who depend on it to obtain the most up to date information. Help us save species and restore native ecosystems!

Close
Please scroll to the bottom for more images.
Floristic Inventory of the Florida Keys Database Online

Urochloa fusca (Sw.) B.F. Hansen & Wunderlin
Browntop signalgrass

Urochloa fusca
Copyright by: University of South Florida Herbarium
Specimen collected by Ferdinand Rugel (s.n. USF)
Key West, between 1842 and 1849

Family: Poaceae

Group: Monocot

Substrate: Terrestrial

Habit: Herb

Perennation: Annual

Native Range: Southern United States, the West Indies, Mexico, Central America and South America. Spreading beyond its native range as a weed.

Map of select IRC data for peninsular Florida

SOUTH FLORIDA Occurrence: Present

SOUTH FLORIDA Native Status: Native

Comments: Although we have treated this as non-native in the past, this was collected in Key West by Ferdinand Rugel between 1842 and 1849 and on an island in Estero Bay (probably Mound Key) by A.P. Garber in 1878. There are other early collections from shell mounds and coastal uplands from the Flamingo area in Everglades National Park northwest to Charlotte Harbor. Although weedy, it appears that this is a native componant of our flora, at least from Key West to Charlotte Harbor. It may have spread as a weed elsewhere from there.

For more images, click on the USDA PLANTS link below.

Synonyms: U. fusca var. reticulata, U. fasciculata var. reticulata.

FLORIDA KEYS Occurrence: Possibly Extirpated

FLORIDA KEYS Native Status: Possibly Extirpated

IRC FLORIDA KEYS Status: Possibly Extirpated

Map of select IRC data for the Florida Keys

Florida Keys History and Distribution: Collected by Ferdinand Rugel between 1842 and 1849 on Key West. Reported in 1913 by John Kunkel Small for hammocks in the lower Keys.  Also reported for Big Pine Key (Dickson 1953, Franklin 1968) and the National Key Deer Refuge (Austin et al. 1980).  No recent herbarium vouchers or observations are known.

Other data on Urochloa fusca available from :


Urochloa fusca has been reported from the following conservation area in the FLORIDA KEYS :
Occurrence Native Status
National Key Deer Refuge Possibly Extirpated Possibly Extirpated






All Images:

Urochloa fusca
Copyright by: University of South Florida Herbarium
Specimen collected by Ferdinand Rugel (s.n. USF)
Key West, between 1842 and 1849