Flora of North America species comparison

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Miscanthus oligostachyus

small Japanese silver grass
Habit Plants cespitose, rhizomatous.
Culms

80-150 cm tall, 2-3 mm thick below, few together or solitary;

nodes finely pubescent.
Sheaths

mostly glabrous, pilose near the summits;

ligules 2-3 mm, rounded;

blades well-developed only on the cauline sheaths, 8-35 cm long, 6-25 mm wide, adaxial surfaces densely pilose basally.
Panicles

long-exserted, loose, with 2-5 erect to suberect branches;

branches 7-15 cm, densely pilose, with white or purplish-white hairs.
Spikelets

6-8 mm;

callus hairs from 1/2 as long as to equaling the spikelets, silky, white.
Lower glumes

6-8 mm, sparsely pilose, 2-keeled above, 2-toothed, teeth densely white-ciliate;

upper glumes equaling the lower glumes, 3-5-veined;

awns of upper lemmas (4)8-15 mm, twisted at the bases;

anthers 2.5-3 mm.
Shorter

pedicels 1.5-2 mm;

longer pedicels 5-6 mm, sulcate on 1 side.
2n

= 38.

Miscanthus oligostachyus
Distribution
Discussion

Miscanthus oligostachyus is a native of Japanese and Korean forests that is sold as an ornamental species in the United States. It does best in regions with cool summers. Koyama (1987) recognized three subspecies of M. oligostachyus; they have not been evaluated for this treatment.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 25, p. 618.
Parent taxa Poaceae > subfam. Panicoideae > tribe Andropogoneae > Miscanthus
Sibling taxa
M. floridulus, M. nepalensis, M. sacchariflorus, M. sinensis
Name authority Stapf
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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