Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

WIRESTEM MUHLY

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Muhlenbergia frondosa (Poir. ) Fernald

Saline County, Kansas

Perennial

Height: 10-40 inches

Family: Poaceae - Grass Family

Flowering Period: August, September,October

Culms:

Initially simple, erect or ascending, later becoming bushy-branched and decumbent or sprawling; hollow, glabrous.

Blades:

Flat or margins inrolled, lax, 1.5 to 5 inches long, 1/12 to 1/4 inch wide, glabrous or roughened.

Sheaths:

Rounded to slightly keeled, glabrous.

Ligules:

Membranous, lacerate-ciliate, less than 1/16 inch.

Inflorescences:

Panicles, numerous, slender, spike-like, 1 to 5 inches long, ca. 2/5 inch wide, terminal and axillary; branches short, appressed to main axis; axillary panicles borne at many nodes, only partially exserted.

Spikelets:

Short-stalked, 1-flowered, narrowly lanceolate, 1/10 to 1/6 inch long excluding awns; glumes nearly equal, strongly 1-nerved, narrowly lanceolate to linear, 1/12 to 1/6 inch long, acute, acuminate or short awn-tipped, usually surpassing lemma; lemma lanceolate, glabrous, tuft of short hairs at base, tip awnless or awned.

Habitat:

Moist depressions of upland prairies, banks of streams, lake margins, roadsides, bottomland woods, mesic upland woods.

Distribution:

Principally east 1/3 of Kansas, but scattered throughout

Origin:

Native

Comments:

Strongly rhizomatous. Named for Gotthilf Henry Ernest Muhlenberg, 1753-1815, Pennsylvania botanist.

Wirestem muhly