Paspalum pubiflorum

Plants perennial; usually decumbent, rooting at the nodes. Culms 30-130 cm, decumbent; nodes glabrous or pubescent. Sheaths glabrous or pubescent; ligules 1-3.2 mm; blades to 31 cm long, 4-18 mm wide, flat, glabrous, with a few hairs behind the ligules. Panicles terminal, with 2-7 racemosely arranged branches; branches 2.2-7.9 cm, divergent to spreading, terminating in a spikelet; branch axes 1.1-2.3 mm wide, narrowly winged, glabrous, margins scabrous. Spikelets 2.8-3.6 mm long, 1.5-2 mm wide, paired, imbricate, appressed to divergent from the branch axes, elliptic to obovate, pubescent or glabrous, light brown to stramineous. Lower glumes absent; upper glumes and lower lemmas glabrous or sparsely pubescent, hairs shorter than 0.1 mm, 3-veined, margins entire; lower lemmas lacking ribs over the veins; upper florets stramineous. Caryopses 1.8-2 mm, golden brown or white. 2n = 60, ca. 64.

Paspalum pubiflorum grows on the edges of forests and in disturbed areas. It is native to the southeastern United States, Mexico, and Cuba.

Culms stout, strongly compressed, to 1 m, usually decumbent, rooting at the nodes; sheaths loose, glabrous or sparsely villous; blades 8-17 mm wide, usually pilose at base; panicle often equaled or surpassed by the lvs; racemes 5-10, thick, 5-10 cm; rachis 1-2 mm wide, spikelets mostly in pairs, oblong-obovate, 2.8-3.1 mm; glume and sterile lemma 3-7-veined; 2n=60. Moist or wet soil; s. O. to Kans., so to N.C., Fla., and Tex. Our plants, with glabrous spikelets, are var. glabrum Vasey ex Scribn. (P. laeviglume)

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

©The New York Botanical Garden. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

From Flora of Indiana (1940) by Charles C. Deam

Infrequent in a few of our southern counties. Usually found in moist, sandy soil in ditches and in low ground. It is a common plant in the street gutters in the southeastern part of Mt. Vernon.

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Indiana Coefficient of Conservatism: C = 3

Wetland Indicator Status: FACW