Panicum verrucosum |
Panicum dichotomiflorum |
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warty panicgrass |
fall panicgrass, fall panicum, knee grass, panic d'automne, smooth witchgrass |
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Habit | Plants annual; weak, ascending or sprawling. | Plants annual or short-lived perennials in the Flora region, perennial in the tropics; usually terrestrial, sometimes aquatic but not floating. | ||||||||
Culms | 10-150 cm, slender, wiry, erect at first, ultimately decumbent, sprawling, glabrous, often with purple dots and streaks, branching extensively at the base, rooting at the lower nodes. |
5-200 cm tall, 0.4-3 mm thick, decumbent to erect, commonly geniculate to ascending, rooting at the lower nodes when in water, simple to divergently branched from the lower and middle nodes, usually succulent, slightly compressed, glabrous; nodes usually swollen, sometimes constricted on robust plants, glabrous; internodes glabrous, shiny, pale green to purplish. |
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Sheaths | often shorter than the internodes, loose, glabrous, margins short-ciliate; ligules 0.2-0.5 mm, membranous, erose, ciliate; blades 5-20 cm long, 3-10 mm wide, thin, flat, glabrous on both surfaces, margins scabridulous, apices long-acuminate. |
compressed, inflated, sparsely pubescent near the base, elsewhere mostly glabrous, sparsely pilose, or hispid, hairs sometimes papillose-based, margins or throat ciliate, with papillose-based hairs; ligules 0.5-2 mm; blades 10-65 cm long, 3-25 mm wide, glabrous or sparsely pilose, often scabrous near the margins, midribs stout, whitish. |
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Panicles | 5-30 cm, nearly as wide as long; branches few, capillary, with a few spikelets distally; pedicels 0.5-10 mm. |
4-40 cm, diffuse, lax, with a few spikelets; branches to 15 cm, alternate or opposite, occasionally verticillate, ascending to spreading, stiff, scabrous; pedicels 1-6 mm, sharply 3-angled, scabrous, expanded to cuplike apices, appressed mostly to the abaxial side of the branches. |
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Spikelets | 1.7-2.2 mm long, about 1 mm wide, ellipsoid or obovoid, glabrous, faintly veined, subacute or obtuse at the apices. |
1.8-3.8 mm long, 0.7-1.2 mm wide, ellipsoid to narrowly ovoid, light green to red-purple, glabrous, acute to acuminate. |
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Lower glumes | 0.3-0.8 mm, reduced, acute; upper glumes and lower lemmas subequal or the glumes shorter, distinctly verrucose, with hemispheric warts; upper florets 1.6-2 mm long, about 1 mm wide, grayish-brown, dull, minutely papillose, acute. |
0.6-1.2 mm, 1/4 - 1/3 as long as the spikelets, 0-3-veined, obtuse to acute; upper glumes and lower lemmas similar, exceeding the upper florets by 0.3-0.6 mm, 7-9-veined; lower paleas vestigial to almost as long as the lower lemmas; lower florets sterile; upper florets 1.4-2.5 mm long, 0.7-1.1 mm wide, narrowly ellipsoid, smooth, shiny, stramineous to nigrescent, with pale veins. |
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2n | = 36. |
= 36, 54. |
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Panicum verrucosum |
Panicum dichotomiflorum |
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Distribution |
AL; AR; CT; DC; DE; FL; GA; IL; IN; KY; LA; MA; MD; MI; MO; MS; NC; NJ; NY; OH; OK; PA; RI; SC; TN; TX; VA; WV
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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; NE; NH; NJ; NM; NV; NY; OH; OK; OR; PA; RI; SC; SD; TN; TX; UT; VA; VT; WA; WI; WV; HI; PR; BC; NB; NS; ON; QC
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Discussion | Panicum verrucosum grows primarily in open, moist or wet sandy areas bordering swamps, marshes, or lakes or on roadside ditches; it also grows occasionally in open, drier woodlands. It is restricted to the eastern United States and is mostly, but not exclusively, coastal. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Panicum dichotomiflorum grows in open, often wet, disturbed areas such as cultivated and fallow fields, roadsides, ditches, open stream banks, receding shores, clearings in flood plain woods, and sometimes in shallow water. It is probably native throughout the eastern United States and adjacent Canada, but introduced elsewhere, including in the western United States. Its size and habit may be partly under genetic control, but these features also seem to be strongly affected by moisture levels, soil richness, competition, and the time of germination. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 25, p. 487. | FNA vol. 25, p. 469. | ||||||||
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Panicoideae > tribe Paniceae > Panicum > subg. Phanopyrum > sect. Verrucosa | Poaceae > subfam. Panicoideae > tribe Paniceae > Panicum > subg. Panicum > sect. Dichotomiflora | ||||||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||||||
Synonyms | P. debile | |||||||||
Name authority | Muhl. | Michx. | ||||||||
Web links |
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