Flora of North America species comparison

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Schizachyrium sanguineum

crimson bluestem
Habit Plants cespitose.
Culms

40-120 cm, erect, not rooting or branching at the lower nodes, glabrous.
Sheaths

glabrous, rounded;

ligules 0.7-2 mm;

blades 7-20 cm long, 1-6 mm wide, usually with long, papillose-based hairs basally, glabrous elsewhere, sometimes scabrous, without a longitudinal stripe of white, spongy tissue.
Peduncles

4-6 cm;

rames 4-15 cm, not open, usually almost fully exserted at maturity;

internodes 4-6 mm, straight, from mostly glabrous with a tuft of hairs at the base to densely hirsute all over.
Pedicels

3-6 mm long, 0.3-0.5 mm wide at the base, gradually widening to about 0.6-0.8 mm at the top, straight.
Sessile

spikelets 5-9 mm;

calluses 0.5-1 mm, hairs to 2 mm;

lower glumes glabrous or densely pubescent;

upper lemmas cleft for (2/3)3/4-7/8 of their length;

awns 15-25 mm.
Pedicellate

spikelets 3-5 mm, usually evidently shorter than the sessile spikelets, sterile or staminate, awned, awns 0.3-6 mm.

Schizachyrium sanguineum
Distribution
from FNA
AL; AZ; FL; GA; NM; TX; PR; Virgin Islands
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Schizachyrium sanguineum extends from the southern United States to Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Key
1. Lower glumes of the sessile spikelets glabrous or scabrous; pedicels ciliate on 1 edge
var. sanguineum
1. Lower glumes of the sessile spikelets pubescent to hirsute; pedicels ciliate on both edges
var. hirtiflorum
Source FNA vol. 25, p. 674.
Parent taxa Poaceae > subfam. Panicoideae > tribe Andropogoneae > Schizachyrium
Sibling taxa
S. cirratum, S. littorale, S. maritimum, S. niveum, S. rhizomatum, S. scoparium, S. spadiceum, S. tenerum
Subordinate taxa
S. sanguineum var. hirtiflorum, S. sanguineum var. sanguineum
Name authority (Retz.) Alston
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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