Panicum capillare |
Panicum brachyanthum |
|||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
common panicgrass, common witchgrass, old witch grass, panic capillaire, witch grass, witch panicgrass |
prairie panicgrass |
|||||
Habit | Plants annual; hirsute or hispid, hairs papillose-based, often bluish or purplish. | Plants annual; weak, ascending or spreading. | ||||
Culms | 15-130 cm, slender to stout, not woody, erect to decumbent, straight to zigzag, simple to profusely branched; nodes sparsely to densely pilose. |
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. |
||||
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. |
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. |
||||
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. |
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. |
||||
Spikelets | 1.9-4 mm, ellipsoid to lanceoloid, often red-purple, glabrous. |
3.2-4 mm long, about 1.5 mm wide, broadly ellipsoid or obovoid, tuberculate, hispid, faintly veined, acute or acuminate at the apices. |
||||
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. |
|||||
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. |
|||||
2n | = 18. |
= unknown. |
||||
Panicum capillare |
Panicum brachyanthum |
|||||
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
|
AR; LA; MS; OK; TX
|
||||
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 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.) |
||||
Key |
|
|||||
Source | FNA vol. 25. | FNA vol. 25, p. 487. | ||||
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Panicoideae > tribe Paniceae > Panicum > subg. Panicum > sect. Panicum | Poaceae > subfam. Panicoideae > tribe Paniceae > Panicum > subg. Phanopyrum > sect. Verrucosa | ||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||
Name authority | L. | Steud. | ||||
Web links |
|