Panicum capillare
Panicum urvilleanum
common panicgrass, common witchgrass, old witch grass, panic capillaire, witch grass, witch panicgrass
desert panicgrass, silky panic grass
15-130 cm, slender to stout, not woody, erect to decumbent, straight to zigzag, simple to profusely branched;
nodes sparsely to densely pilose.
50-100 cm, erect, solitary or in small tufts from stout, scaly, creeping to vertical rhizomes or stolons, simple or branching at the base;
nodes densely villous.
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.
densely villous;
ligules membranous, ciliate, hairs 1.5-2 mm;
blades 20-60 cm long, 4-10 mm wide, ascending to spreading, strigose to subglabrous, flat basally, tapering to a long, involute point.
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.
20-30 cm long, 3-9 cm wide, narrow, shortly exserted;
branches slender, ascending;
secondary branches and pedicels 1-4 mm, crowded, ascending to appressed.
1.9-4 mm, ellipsoid to lanceoloid, often red-purple, glabrous.
5-7 mm, densely villous, hairs silvery or tawny-white.
about 3/4 the length of the spikelets, 7-11-veined;
upper glumes and lower lemmas 7-15-veined;
lower florets staminate;
lower paleas about as long as the lower lemmas;
upper florets striate, margins of the upper lemmas villous, hairs white;
lodicules very large.
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.
= 18.
= 36.
Panicum capillare
Panicum urvilleanum
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 urvilleanum grows on desert sand dunes and in creosote bush scrubland in the Mojave and Colorado desert regions of southern California, southern Nevada, and western Arizona. It also grows in Peru, Chile, and Argentina.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
1. Upper florets without a lunate scar, usually stramineous; lower paleas absent; pedicels and secondary branches strongly divergent | subsp. capillare |
1. Upper florets with a lunate scar at the base, usually nigrescent; lower paleas present; pedicels and secondary branches often appressed, varying to narrowly divergent | subsp. hillmanii |
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