Paspalum bifidum

Plants perennial; rhizomatous. Culms 60-140 cm, erect; nodes glabrous.Sheaths pubescent; ligules 2-4 mm; blades to 37 cm long, 2.2-11 mm wide, flat. Panicles terminal, with 2-5 racemosely arranged branches; branches 3.7-13 cm, divergent to erect; branch axes 0.2-0.8 mm wide, glabrous, margins scabrous, terminating in a spikelet. Spikelets 3.1-4 mm long, 2-2.5 mm wide, paired, not imbricate, appressed to the branch axes, elliptic to obovate, yellow-brown. Lower glumes present or absent; upper glumes glabrous or sparsely pubescent basally, (6)7-veined, margins entire; lower lemmas glabrous or sparsely pubescent basally, lacking ribs over the veins, 5-veined, margins entire; upper florets white. Caryopses 2.6-2.9 mm, purple. 2n = unknown.

Paspalum bifidum is restricted to the southeastern United States. It grows at the edges of forests in longleaf pine-oak-grass ecosystems, usually in dry to mesic loamy sandy soils. It grows vigorously following fire.

Culms solitary, erect from short rhizomes, 6-10 dm; lower sheaths and base of the elongate blades villous; panicle on a peduncle 1-4 dm, much surpassing the short uppermost lf; racemes usually 2-4, erect or ascending, 5-10 cm, very loose or interrupted, the rachis very slender; spikelets elliptic, acutish, planoconvex, 3.3-4 mm; first glume often present, deltoid, to 1 mm; second glume and sterile lemma distinctly 5-7-veined. Dry pine woods; coastal plain from se. Va. to Fla. and Tex., and inland to Tenn. and Okla.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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