Sheaths usually pubescent, often densely so, rarely glabrous. Panicles to 77.5 cm long, usually 1.3-5.5 times as long as wide; branches to 33 cm long, typically widely divergent, sometimes reflexed in the lower 1/3 of the panicle. Spikelets commonly with a brownish cast, relatively loosely imbricate.

Calamovilfa longifolia var. magna grows on dunes and sandy shores around lakes Superior, Michigan and Huron, with outlying stations in sand or sandy soils.

Perennial herb with elongate rhizomes covered in shiny scale-like leaves to 3.18 m tall Leaves: along culm, with a usually densely hairy (rarely hairless) sheath, a ligule made of dense short hairs (0.7 - 2.5 mm long), and a blade to 0.64 m long and about 1.2 cm wide with a pointed tip. Inflorescence: terminal, branched (panicle), rising above the upper leaves, 15 cm - 0.78 m long, one and three-tenths to five and a half times as long as wide, flexible. The branches reach 33 cm long, are erect to divergent with the lower branches often reflexed, and bear loosely overlapping spikelets. Fruit: a caryopsis, the wall of the mature ovary (pericarp) not attached to the seed. Culm: to 2.4 m long, solitary or few. Spikelets: usually brownish, 5 - 8.5 mm long, laterally compressed. Glumes: straight, nearly equal or unequal, with a single vein and a pointed tip. The lower glume is 3.5 - 6.5 mm long, and the upper glume is 5 - 8.2 mm long. Florets: one per spikelet. Lemma: resembling the glumes, 4.5 - 7.1 mm long, straight with a pointed tip and a single vein, hairless, and unawned. Palea: 4.4 - 6.9 mm long, hairless, longitudinaly grooved, with three anthers 2.4 - 5.5 mm long.

Similar species: No information at this time.

Flowering: late July to early September

Habitat and ecology: Characteristic species of the sand dunes near Lake Michigan.

Occurence in the Chicago region: native

Etymology: Calamovilfa comes from the Greek words calamos, meaning reed, and Vilfa, a name sometimes used for a genus of grasses.

Author: The Morton Arboretum

Infl broader, 1.3-6 times as long as wide, with more spreading branches and less crowded spikelets; sheaths usually pubescent, often densely so, only rarely glabrous. Mainly on dunes along the shores of lakes Michigan and Huron, with scattered outlying stations w. to w. Wis. and e. Io.

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

This species is found in dry, shifting sands on the dunes about Lake Michigan and on a few shifting dunes in Jasper and Newton Counties.

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Indiana Coefficient of Conservatism: C = 9

Wetland Indicator Status: n/a