Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

WHITEGRASS

File Size: 82 KB

Leersia virginica Willd.

Konza Prairie, Riley County, Kansas

Perennial

Height: 12-48 inches

Family: Poaceae- Grass Family

Flowering Period: August, September,October

Also Called:

Virginia cut grass.

Culms:

Erect or often decumbent, slender, weak, hollow, often flattened, spreading, straggling, much branched, sometimes rooting at lower nodes; nodes conspicuous, pubescent.

Blades:

Several per culm, flat, 2 to 8 inches long, 1/8 to 1/2 inch wide, thin, narrowed towards base; surfaces glabrous or somewhat rough; margins with fine and inconspicuous stiff hairs; tip tapering to point.

Sheaths:

Mostly shorter than internodes, keeled, flattened, smooth or rough.

Ligules:

Membranous, 1/25 to 1/16 inch long, often jagged.

Inflorescences:

Terminal panicles, open, 2.8 to 8 inches long; axillary panicles sometimes partly included in leaf sheaths; branches few, spike-like, loosely ascending; lower panicle branches solitary.

Spikelets:

Numerous, flat, closely pressed against 1 side of branches, minutely stalked, 1-flowered, oblong to narrowly elliptic, 1/10 to 1/6 inch long, about 1/25 inch wide; glumes absent; lemmas boat-shaped, awnless, usually with a fringe of hairs along keel and margins.

Habitat:

Moist or wet woods, stream banks, ditches

Distribution:

East 4/5 of Kansas

Origin:

Native

Comments:

Rhizomes short, dark, scaly. Sometimes planted near fish ponds.

Whitegrass