Carolina lovegrass

Images

Click on image to view full size

Carolina lovegrass

Carolina lovegrass

Carolina lovegrass

Carolina lovegrass inflorescence

Morphology

Culm

Low spreading to ascending or erect, slender, hollow to pith-filled, glabrous, often branched; base decumbent.

Blades

Flat or with margins rolled inward, 1.6 to 6 inches long, 1/25 to 1/6 inch wide, glabrous or upper surface rough near base; tip tapering to long point.

Sheath

Mostly shorter than internodes, keeled, glabrous, usually with tuft of hairs at collar.

Ligule

Dense ring of hairs less than 1/25 inch long.

Inflorescence

Panicle, egg-shaped to triangular in outline, broadest below middle, 1.2 to 8 inches long, exserted or partially included in sheath, openly branched with 1-2 branches per node; primary branches loosely ascending to spreading, secondary branches flattened against main branches; rachis bent alternately in opposite directions (zig-zag appearance).

Spikelets

Numerous, 3-15-flowered, mostly linear, 1/8 to 1/3 inch long, 1/25 to 1/12 inch wide, flattened, loosely overlapping, parallel to branches, dark grayish-green; short- to long-stalked; glumes unequal, lanceolate, pointed to tapering-pointed; first glume shorter than second; lemmas narrowly egg-shaped, about 1/16 inch long, 3-nerved, rough on mid-nerve, grayish-green; tip sharply pointed.

Ecology

Habitat

Open waste ground, stream and river banks, margins of ponds and lakes, roadsides, fallow or old fields, ditches, edges of lowland woods; moist, sandy or clayey soils.

Distribution

Throughout Kansas

Additional Notes