Melica mutica |
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oniongrass, two-flower melic, twoflower melicgrass |
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Habit | Plants not or loosely cespitose, shortly rhizomatous. |
Culms | 45-100 cm, not forming corms; internodes sometimes scabridulous above the nodes. |
Sheaths | glabrous or pilose; ligules 0.5-1.5 mm; blades 1.8-6 mm wide, abaxial surfaces glabrous, scabridulous, adaxial surfaces with hairs. |
Panicles | 4-25 cm; branches 3.5-6 cm, appressed to spreading, straight, with 2-5 spikelets; pedicels sharply bent below the spikelets; disarticulation below the glumes. |
Spikelets | 6-11 mm, with (1)2(4) bisexual florets, floret apices at about the same level; rachilla internodes 1.5-1.7 mm. |
Lower | glumes 4.5-8 mm long, 3-4 mm wide, 5-7-veined; upper glumes 5-9 mm long, 2.5-3.5 mm wide, 5-6-veined; lemmas 6-11 mm, glabrous or scabrous, indurate, 9-11-veined, veins prominent, apices rounded to acute, unawned; paleas about 3/4 the length of the lemmas; anthers 1-3 mm; rudiments 2-3 mm, clublike, not resembling the bisexual florets, at a sharp angle to the rachilla. |
2n | = 18. |
Melica mutica |
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Distribution |
AL; AR; DC; FL; GA; IA; IL; IN; KY; LA; MD; MS; NC; NJ; OK; SC; TN; TX; VA; WV
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Discussion | Melica mutica grows in moist or dry areas in open woods and thickets, from Iowa and Texas east to Maryland and Florida. It is unique among the North American species in having a clublike rudiment at a sharp angle to the rachilla. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 24, p. 100. |
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Pooideae > tribe Meliceae > Melica |
Sibling taxa | |
Name authority | Walter |
Web links |