Panicum brachyanthum |
Panicum sect. Verrucosa |
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prairie panicgrass |
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Habit | Plants annual; weak, ascending or spreading. | Plants annual. |
Culms | 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. |
weak, sprawling. |
Sheaths | 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. |
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Panicles | 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. |
open, diffuse, lax, with a few spikelets. |
Spikelets | 3.2-4 mm long, about 1.5 mm wide, broadly ellipsoid or obovoid, tuberculate, hispid, faintly veined, acute or acuminate at the apices. |
warty-tuberculate or verrucose, faintly veined. |
Lower glumes | 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. |
less than 1/5 as long as the spikelets, without veins; upper glumes and lower lemmas subequal, 5-veined; lower florets sterile; lower paleas absent; upper florets finely longitudinally rugose, papillose and with bicellular microhairs, often with a minute protuberance at the base of the paleas. |
Ligules | membranous, ciliate, very short. |
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x | = 9. |
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2n | = unknown. |
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Panicum brachyanthum |
Panicum sect. Verrucosa |
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Distribution |
AR; LA; MS; OK; TX
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Discussion | 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.) |
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Source | FNA vol. 25, p. 487. | FNA vol. 25, p. 487. |
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Panicoideae > tribe Paniceae > Panicum > subg. Phanopyrum > sect. Verrucosa | Poaceae > subfam. Panicoideae > tribe Paniceae > Panicum > subg. Phanopyrum |
Sibling taxa | ||
Subordinate taxa | ||
Name authority | Steud. | (Nash) C.C. Hsu |
Web links |