Flora of North America species comparison

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Dichanthelium boreale

northern panicgrass, northern rosette-panicgrass, panic boreal
Habit Plants cespitose.
Culms

18-75 cm, usually more than 1 mm thick, occasionally delicate, erect or ascending;

nodes glabrous;

internodes glabrous;

fall phase with decumbent culms, branches arising from the lower and midculm nodes, rebranching 2-3 times, with small blades and secondary panicles compared to those on the culms, secondary panicles with 8-10 spikelets, partially included at maturity.
Cauline leaves

3-5;

sheaths shorter than the internodes, lower sheaths pubescent, upper sheaths glabrous, margins of all sheaths sparsely ciliate;

ligules about 0.5 mm, of hairs;

blades 5-11 cm long, 5-13 mm wide, thin, spreading to erect, usually glabrous, rarely pubescent abaxially, always glabrous adaxially, bases truncate to cordate, ciliate on the margins, blades of the flag leaves erect or ascending.
Spikelets

2-2.2 mm long, 0.8-1.3 mm wide, ellipsoid, usually reddish, shortly pubescent, subacute.
Basal

rosettes well-differentiated;

blades 2-4 cm, pubescent, reddish.
Primary

panicles 5-11 cm long, 3-8 cm wide, ovoid, long-exserted, with 40-220 spikelets.
Lower

glumes 0.5-1 mm, triangular-ovate;

lower florets sterile;

upper florets slightly exceeding the upper glumes and lower lemmas, subacute.
2n

= 18.

Dichanthelium boreale
Distribution
from FNA
CT; DC; GA; IA; IL; IN; KY; MA; MD; ME; MI; MN; MO; NC; NH; NJ; NY; OH; PA; RI; TN; VA; VT; WI; WV; LB; NB; NS; ON; PE; QC
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Dichanthelium boreale grows in open woodlands and thickets, wet meadows, and fields. It is restricted to the Flora region. The primary panicles are mostly open-pollinated and are produced in May and June; the secondary panicles are predominantly cleistogamous and are produced from mid-June into October.

Dichanthelium boreale occasionally hybridizes with D. acuminatum and D. xanthophysum, producing a sterile triploid sometimes called Panicum calliphyllum Ashe.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 25, p. 434.
Parent taxa Poaceae > subfam. Panicoideae > tribe Paniceae > Dichanthelium > sect. Dichanthelium
Sibling taxa
D. aciculare, D. acuminatum, D. boscii, D. chamaelonche, D. clandestinum, D. commutatum, D. consanguineum, D. depauperatum, D. dichotomum, D. ensifolium, D. erectifolium, D. latifolium, D. laxiflorum, D. leibergii, D. linearifolium, D. malacophyllum, D. nodatum, D. nudicaule, D. oligosanthes, D. ovale, D. pedicellatum, D. perlongum, D. polyanthes, D. portoricense, D. ravenelii, D. scabriusculum, D. scoparium, D. sphaerocarpon, D. strigosum, D. tenue, D. wilcoxianum, D. wrightianum, D. ×anthophysum
Synonyms Panicum boreale var. michiganense, Panicum boreale
Name authority (Nash) Freckmann
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



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