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.
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.