Rice cutgrass

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Rice cutgrass blade

Rice cutgrass

Rice cutgrass node

Rice cutgrass

Rice cutgrass inflorescence

Rice cutgrass inflorescence

Rice cutgrass leaves

Rice cutgrass inflorescence

Rice cutgrass spikelets

Rice cutgrass inflorescence

Rice cutgrass

Rice cutgrass node pubescence

Rice cutgrass

Rice nutgrass spikelets

Rice cutgrass blade

Morphology

Culm

Tufted, but with slender rhizomes. Culms mostly spreading, often decumbent below, distally erect; nodes pubescent.

Blades

Flat, 4 to 12 inches long, 1/4 to 3/5 inch wide, margins with stiff, spine-like hairs, tips long-tapering to points, surfaces very rough.

Sheath

Slightly keeled, usually rough with minute, stiff, downward pointed hairs.

Ligule

Truncate, minutely ciliate, to 1/12 inch.

Inflorescence

Panicle, pale green or whitish, open, terminal one 6 to 12 inches long, exerted or sometimes partly included; branches numerous. slender, spreading, lower part of branch without spikelets; lower part of panicle with 2-4 branches per node; late season axillary panicles reduced, included in sheaths.

Spikelets

Overlapping in spike-like clusters of 3-8 at ends of branches; 1-flowered, oblong to narrowly elliptic, 1/6 to 1/4 inch long; glumes absent; lemma and palea with fringe of eyelash-like hairs along keel.

Ecology

Habitat

Margins of streams, ponds, and lakes, and marshes, ditches.

Distribution

Nearly throughout Kansas