Panicum capillare |
Panicum obtusum |
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common panicgrass, common witchgrass, old witch grass, panic capillaire, witch grass, witch panicgrass |
vine mesquite |
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Habit | Plants annual; hirsute or hispid, hairs papillose-based, often bluish or purplish. | Plants perennial; usually from long slender stolons or shallow rhizomes with swollen, villous nodes. | ||||
Culms | 15-130 cm, slender to stout, not woody, erect to decumbent, straight to zigzag, simple to profusely branched; nodes sparsely to densely pilose. |
20-80 cm, often in small clumps, compressed, erect or decumbent, glaucous; lower nodes pubescent; upper nodes glabrous. |
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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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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. |
5-15 cm long, 0.8-1.5 cm wide; branches 2-6, spikelike, erect, puberulent, 3-angled; ultimate branchlets 1-sided; pedicels paired, congested, shorter pedicels 0.1-1 mm, longer pedicels 1.5-2.5 mm. |
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Spikelets | 1.9-4 mm, ellipsoid to lanceoloid, often red-purple, glabrous. |
2.8-4.4 mm, ellipsoid, terete to slightly laterally compressed, glabrous, obtuse. |
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Lower glumes | about 3/4 as long as the spikelets, 5- or 7-veined; upper glumes and lower lemmas equaling the spikelets, 5-9-veined; lower florets staminate; lower paleas 2.5-3.5 mm; upper florets puberulent at the bases and apices. |
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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. |
sheaths ascending, pubescent to pilose; upper sheaths glabrous; ligules 0.2-2 mm, membranous, truncate, irregularly denticulate; blades 3-26 cm long, 2-7 mm wide, ascending, firm, glaucous, sparsely pilose near the base, often scabrous on the margins, involute towards the apices. |
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2n | = 18. |
= 20, 36, 40. |
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Panicum capillare |
Panicum obtusum |
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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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AR; AZ; CO; IL; KS; MO; NM; OK; TX; UT
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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 obtusum grows in seasonally wet sand or gravel, especially on stream banks, ditches, roadsides, wet pastures, and rangeland. Its range extends from the southwestern United States to central Mexico. Flowering is from May through October. (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. 481. | ||||
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Panicoideae > tribe Paniceae > Panicum > subg. Panicum > sect. Panicum | Poaceae > subfam. Panicoideae > tribe Paniceae > Panicum > subg. Agrostoidea > sect. Obtusa | ||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||
Name authority | L. | Kunth | ||||
Web links |
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