Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

FLORIDA PASPALUM

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Paspalum floridanum Michx.

Mon-Shon Prairie, Barton County, Missouri

Perennial

Height: 16-80 inches

Family: Poaceae - Grass Family

Flowering Period: July, August, September,October

Also Called:

Big paspalum.

Culms:

Erect or ascending, solitary or few, stout, flattened, usually unbranched, glabrous.

Blades:

Firm, mostly flat, 2.4 to 28 inches long, 1/5 to 3/5 inch wide; lower surface glabrous, upper surface glabrous or sparingly stiff-hairy at base; margins rough; tips long-tapering points.

Sheaths:

About as long as internodes, keeled, glabrous or basal sometimes stiff-hairy.

Ligules:

Membrane, delicate, 1/25 to 1/10 inch long, truncate.

Inflorescences:

Racemes, usually 2-5, erect to loosely ascending, thick, 1.6 to 6 inches long; rachis flattened, zig zag.

Spikelets:

Crowded, nearly sessile, single or mostly in pairs on 1 side of rachis, usually overlapping, 1-flowered, nearly circular to broadly elliptic, 1/7 to 1/5 inch long, about 1/8 inch wide, pale, glabrous; first glume absent; second glume broadly elliptic to nearly circular, 1/7 to 1/6 inch long, 5-nerved, slightly wrinkled; tip rounded; sterile lemma similar; fertile lemma firm, smooth, shiny.

Habitat:

Low, sandy open areas, prairies, pastures, open woods, roadsides, stream banks, disturbed areas; moist to relatively dry soil.

Distribution:

East half of Kansas.

Origin:

Native

Toxicity:

Ergot fungi can occur in some paspalum species, but is not considered a problem in Florida paspalum.

Comments:

Forms clumps.

Florida paspalum spikelets