Panicum capillare |
Panicum mohavense |
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common panicgrass, common witchgrass, old witch grass, panic capillaire, witch grass, witch panicgrass |
Mohave witchgrass, Mojave panicgrass |
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Habit | Plants annual; hirsute or hispid, hairs papillose-based, often bluish or purplish. | Plants annual. | ||||
Culms | 15-130 cm, slender to stout, not woody, erect to decumbent, straight to zigzag, simple to profusely branched; nodes sparsely to densely pilose. |
2-8 cm, erect-spreading; nodes 1-2, hispid; internodes pilose, hairs papillose-based. |
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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. |
rounded, much longer than the internodes, with prominent veins, hispid, hairs papillose-based; ligules 0.2-0.4 mm, membranous, ciliate; blades 1-4 cm long, 1-3 mm wide, flat or involute apically, glabrous basally, margins ciliate, cilia papillose-based. |
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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. |
congested, partially included in the sheaths, less than 1.5 times longer than wide; branches ascending, narrow; primary branches appressed to the main axes, secondary branches and pedicels attached to the distal 2/3; pedicels appressed, 1-2 mm. |
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Spikelets | 1.9-4 mm, ellipsoid to lanceoloid, often red-purple, glabrous. |
2-2.2 mm long, 1-1.3 mm wide, plump-ellipsoid, glabrous. |
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Lower glumes | 1.2-1.3 mm, acute to attenuate; upper glumes and lower lemmas 2-2.2 mm, 7-9-veined, apices purplish, acute; lower florets sterile; lower paleas 0.2-0.4 mm; upper florets 1.4-1.8 mm long, about 1 mm wide, broadly ovoid. |
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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. |
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Panicum capillare |
Panicum mohavense |
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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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AZ; NM |
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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 mohavense is known only from arid limestone terraces in Arizona and New Mexico. (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. 462. | ||||
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Panicoideae > tribe Paniceae > Panicum > subg. Panicum > sect. Panicum | Poaceae > subfam. Panicoideae > tribe Paniceae > Panicum > subg. Panicum > sect. Panicum | ||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||
Name authority | L. | Reeder | ||||
Web links |
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