Panicum capillare |
Panicum anceps |
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common panicgrass, common witchgrass, old witch grass, panic capillaire, witch grass, witch panicgrass |
beak panicgrass |
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Habit | Plants annual; hirsute or hispid, hairs papillose-based, often bluish or purplish. | Plants perennial; conspicuously rhizomatous, rhizomes short or elongate, stout, scaly. | ||||||||
Culms | 15-130 cm, slender to stout, not woody, erect to decumbent, straight to zigzag, simple to profusely branched; nodes sparsely to densely pilose. |
30-130 cm, terete to slightly compressed. |
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Sheaths | rounded, hirsute or hispid, hairs papillose-based; ligules membranous, ciliate, cilia 0.5-1.5 mm; blades 5-40 cm long, 3-18 mm wide, linear, spreading. |
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. |
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Panicles | 13-50 cm long, 7-24 cm wide, usually more than 1/2 as long as the plants, included at the base or exserted at maturity, disarticulating at the base of the peduncles at maturity and becoming a tumbleweed; branches spreading; pedicels 0.5-2.8 mm, scabrous, pilose. |
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. |
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Spikelets | 1.9-4 mm, ellipsoid to lanceoloid, often red-purple, glabrous. |
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. |
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Lower glumes | 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. |
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Lower | florets sterile; lower glumes 1/3– 1/2 as long as the spikelets, 1-3-veined; upper glumes 1.8-3.1 mm, 7-9-veined, midveins scabridulous; lower lemmas 1.9-3 mm, extending 0.4-1.1 mm beyond the upper florets, often stiff, straight, prominently veined distally; upper florets stramineous or nigrescent, sometimes with a prominent lunate scar at the base, often disarticulating before the glumes, leaving the empty glumes and lower lemmas temporarily persisting on the panicles. |
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2n | = 18. |
= 18, 36. |
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Panicum capillare |
Panicum anceps |
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Distribution |
AL; AR; AZ; CA; CO; CT; DC; DE; FL; GA; IA; ID; IL; IN; KS; KY; LA; MA; MD; ME; MI; MN; MO; MS; MT; NC; ND; NE; NH; NJ; NM; NV; NY; OH; OK; OR; PA; RI; SC; SD; TN; TX; UT; VA; VT; WA; WI; WV; WY; AB; BC; MB; NB; NS; ON; PE; QC; SK; Virgin Islands
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AL; AR; DC; DE; FL; GA; IA; IL; IN; KS; KY; LA; MD; MO; MS; NC; NJ; NY; OH; OK; PA; SC; TN; TX; VA; WV
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Discussion | Panicum capillare grows in open areas, particularly in disturbed sites such as fields, pastures, roadsides, waste places, ditches, sand, and rock crevices, etc. It grows throughout temperate North America, including northern Mexico. It also grows in Bermuda, the Virgin Islands, and sporadically in South America, and has become naturalized in much of Europe and Asia. It appears to hybridize with P. philadelphicum. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 25. | FNA vol. 25, p. 478. | ||||||||
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Panicoideae > tribe Paniceae > Panicum > subg. Panicum > sect. Panicum | Poaceae > subfam. Panicoideae > tribe Paniceae > Panicum > subg. Agrostoidea > sect. Agrostoidea | ||||||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||||||
Name authority | L. | Michx. | ||||||||
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