Panicum anceps
Panicum brachyanthum
beak panicgrass
prairie panicgrass
30-130 cm, terete to slightly compressed.
slender, wiry, glabrous, often with minute purple streaks and dots, ascending from a decumbent base, often branching extensively at the base and rooting at the lower nodes.
laterally compressed, glabrous or sparsely to densely pilose or villous, especially at the summit;
ligules less than 0.5 mm, membranous, erose, often brownish;
blades 10-50 cm long, 4-12 mm wide, erect, adaxial surfaces pilose at least basally, glabrous or pilose abaxially.
usually shorter than the internodes, glabrous, margins short-ciliate;
ligules usually less than 0.3 mm, membranous, erose, ciliate;
blades 4-15 cm long (rarely longer), 2-3 mm wide, flat or slightly involute, glabrous on both surfaces, margins scabridulous, especially towards the apices, bases narrowed.
10-40 cm, 1/4 - 2/3 as wide as long, well-exserted at anthesis;
branches relatively few, stiffly spreading or ascending; ultimate branchlets 1-sided;
pedicels 0.1-3 mm, scabridulous to scabrous, appressed.
4-17 cm, 1/2 to nearly as wide as long;
branches few, capillary, ascending or spreading, scabridulous, with a few spikelets distally;
pedicels 0.5-10 mm.
2.3-3.9 mm, narrowly ellipsoid to ovoid, usually subsessile, usually pale to yellowish-green, glabrous, often falcate and gaping at the apices, rarely lanceolate, densely crowded on short, appressed branchlets, set obliquely on short pedicels.
3.2-4 mm long, about 1.5 mm wide, broadly ellipsoid or obovoid, tuberculate, hispid, faintly veined, acute or acuminate at the apices.
A-A as long as the spikelets, 3-veined, keels scabrous, apices acute;
upper glumes and lower lemmas subequal, keeled, beaked, usually gaping at the apices;
lower florets sterile;
lower paleas subequal to the lower lemmas;
upper florets 1.5-2.2 mm long, about 1 mm wide, 2/5 – 3/4 as long as the spikelets, apices with a tuft of minute, thick hairs;
upper lemmas thick, stiff, clasping the upper paleas throughout their length.
usually less than 1 mm, obtuse or acute;
upper glumes and lower lemmas subequal, distinctly tuberculate, hispid, with stiff hairs arising from wartlike bases;
upper florets 2.7-3.2 mm long, 1.3-1.6 mm wide, obovoid or ellipsoid, nearly smooth, minutely papillose, or cross-rugulose, subacute to acute.
= 18, 36.
= unknown.
Panicum anceps
Panicum brachyanthum
Panicum anceps grows in low, moist, primarily sandy areas, pine savannahs, the borders of flood-plain swamps, mesic woodlands, roadsides, and upland pine-hardwood forests. It is restricted to the United States.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Panicum brachyanthum grows in dry, sandy or clayey soils of open areas, remnant prairies, woodland borders, and roadsides and, less commonly, along the margins of bogs and on grassy shores in the western portion of the gulf coast plain. It is restricted to the southern United States. It resembles P. verrucosum in its growth habit, but is more restricted in its distribution.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
1. Spikelets 2.7-3.9 mm long, often clearly falcate; rhizomes relatively short and stout | subsp. anceps |
1. Spikelets 2.3-2.8 mm long, not clearly falcate; rhizomes relatively long and slender | subsp. rhizomatum |
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