Panicum capillare |
Panicum capillare subsp. hillmanii |
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common panicgrass, common witchgrass, old witch grass, panic capillaire, witch grass, witch panicgrass |
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Habit | Plants annual; hirsute or hispid, hairs papillose-based, often bluish or purplish. | |||||
Culms | 15-130 cm, slender to stout, not woody, erect to decumbent, straight to zigzag, simple to profusely branched; nodes sparsely to densely pilose. |
often stout and stiff, usually bluish-green, usually not branching at the base. |
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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. |
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Blades | thick, firm. |
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Spikelets | 1.9-4 mm, ellipsoid to lanceoloid, often red-purple, glabrous. |
2.2-3 mm. |
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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. |
paleas 1-1.8 mm; mature upper florets nigrescent, with a prominent lunate scar at the base. |
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Panicle(s) | 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. |
branches stiff; secondary branches and pedicels usually appressed, varying to narrowly divergent. |
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2n | = 18. |
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Panicum capillare |
Panicum capillare subsp. hillmanii |
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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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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 capillare subsp. hillmanii grows in weedy habitats in California, New Mexico, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. It may be a southern Great Plains extension of the western plants of subsp. capillare that are sometimes called P. capillare var. occidentale Rydb., but it differs from subsp. capillare in more characters than such plants. (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. 459. | ||||
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Panicoideae > tribe Paniceae > Panicum > subg. Panicum > sect. Panicum | Poaceae > subfam. Panicoideae > tribe Paniceae > Panicum > subg. Panicum > sect. Panicum > Panicum capillare | ||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||
Synonyms | P. hillmanii | |||||
Name authority | L. | (Chase) Freckmann & Lelong | ||||
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