Saccharum giganteum

Plants rhizomatous. Culms 1-2.5 m; nodes sericeous, hairs to 5 mm. Sheaths glabrate or glabrous; auricles absent; ligules 2-6 mm; blades usually 35-70 cm long, 8-30 mm wide, adaxial surfaces glabrous or pilose. Peduncles 40-80 cm, pilose; panicles 6-15 cm wide, oblong or lanceolate; rachises 15-30 cm, pilose; lowest nodes densely pilose; primary branches 2-13 cm, ascending or appressed to the rachises; rame internodes 2-5.5 mm, pilose. Sessile spikelets 4.2-6 mm long, 0.8-1.1 mm wide, straw-colored. Callus hairs (7)15-20(25) mm, longer than the spikelets, straw-colored or brown; glumes usually glabrous; lower glumes smooth, indistinctly 5-veined; lower lemmas 3-5 mm, without veins; upper lemmas 2.5-3.5 mm, 1-veined, entire; awns 12-26 mm, straight or curved, terete basally; lodicule veins sometimes extending into hairlike projections; anthers 2. Pedicels 2.5-5 mm, pilose. Pedicellate spikelets similar to the sessile spikelets, except frequently pilose. 2n = 30, 60, 90.

Saccharum giganteum grows in wet soils of bogs, swales, and swamps. Its range extends from the eastern and southeastern United States to Central America. It is a polymorphic, primarily chasmogamous species that intergrades morphologically with the primarily cleistogamous S. trinii (Hack.) Renvoize in Central America. The combination of long callus hairs and straight awns distinguishes it from all other species of Saccharum in the Flora region. According to Hodkinson et al. (2002), this species is a hybrid and should be placed in Miscanthus.

Culms 1-3 m, silky under the panicle and bearded at the nodes, smooth below; blades 6-15 mm wide, smooth or pilose; sheaths densely hairy at the summit; panicle narrow, 1.5-4 dm, tawny or purple, its axis and branches pilose; spikelets ca 6 mm, sparsely long-villous, equaling or usually considerably shorter than the subtending hairs; awn 15-25 mm, terete, straight or slightly flexuous. Moist ground and old fields; N.J. to Ky. and Ark., s. to Fla. and Tex. Late summer. (E. saccharoides; E. compactus; Saccharum g.)

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.