Flora of North America species comparison

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Polypogon viridis

beardless rabbit's-foot grass, water beard grass, water bentgrass
Habit Plants perennial, often flowering the first year.
Culms

10-90 cm, sometimes decumbent and rooting at the lower nodes.
Sheaths

glabrous, smooth;

ligules to 5 mm;

blades 2-13 cm long, 1-6 mm wide.
Panicles

2-10 cm, ovate-oblong to pyramidal, dense but interrupted, pale green to purplish;

pedicels not developed;

stipes 0.1-0.6 mm.
Glumes

1.5-2 mm, scabrous on the back and keel, apices obtuse or truncate, unawned;

lemmas about 1 mm, erose, unawned;

paleas subequal to the lemmas;

anthers 0.3-0.5 mm.
2n

= 28, 42.

Polypogon viridis
Distribution
from FNA
AZ; CA; CO; CT; NJ; NM; NV; OK; OR; SC; TX; UT; VA; WA; WY; HI; PR; BC
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Discussion

Polypogon viridis grows in mesic habitats associated with rivers, streams, and irrigation ditches. It is native from southern Europe to Pakistan, but is now established in the Flora region, particularly the southwestern United States. Records from the Atlantic coast are based on plants found on ballast dumps; there have been no recent collections from these locations.

In Europe, Polypogon viridis hybridizes with P. monspeliensis, forming P. xadscendens Guss. ex Bertol.; no such hybrids have been reported from the Flora region.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 24, p. 663. Treatment author: Mary E. Barkworth.
Parent taxa Poaceae > subfam. Pooideae > tribe Poeae > Polypogon
Sibling taxa
P. australis, P. elongatus, P. fugax, P. imberbis, P. interruptus, P. maritimus, P. monspeliensis
Synonyms P. semiverticillatus, Agrostis viridis, Agrostis verticillata, Agrostis semiverticillata
Name authority (Gouan) Breistr.
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



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