Andropogon ternarius
split bluestem, splitbeard bluestem
70-150 cm.
smooth or scabrous, sometimes pilose;
ligules 0.4-1.5 mm, ciliate;
blades 1-3 mm wide, pubescent or glabrous and glaucous.
2-30+ per culm;
peduncles usually 5-20 mm, with (1)2 rames;
rames 3-4 cm, exerted at maturity, terminating in a sessile-pedicellate spikelet pair;
internodes sparsely to densely villous, hairs from as long as to twice as long as the sessile spikelets.
spikelets 4.5-8.4 mm;
callus hairs to 8 mm;
awns 10-25 mm;
anthers 3,1.2-2.3 mm.
spikelets 1.5-3.6 mm, sterile.
= 40, 60.
Andropogon ternarius
Andropogon ternarius grows in the southeastern United States and northern Mexico. It is planted as an ornamental and for erosion control on slopes in poor and sandy soils, and is tolerant of coastal conditions.
Andropogon ternarius is similar to A. arctatus but differs in its possession of three anthers and usually in its longer spikelets, both sessile and pedicellate.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
1. Rames densely villous, with hairs about twice as long as the sessile spikelets and more or less obscuring them; lower glumes of the sessile spikelets sometimes scabrous, without conspicuous veins between the keels | var. cabanisii |
1. Rames sparsely villous, with hairs about as long as the sessile spikelets, but not obscuring them; lower glumes of the sessile spikelets scabrous, often conspicuously 2-veined between the keels | var. ternarius |
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