Plants with short, thick rhizomes. Culms to 1 m tall, to 2 mm thick,
usually solitary or in small clumps. Sheaths glabrous; blades to
60 cm long, 1-7(15) mm wide, involute or folded, glabrous. Terminal inflorescences
erect, with 1-2 rames. Pistillate spikelets 3.5-4.5 mm wide. Staminate
spikelets sessile-pedicellate; spikelets 5-7 mm; glumes coriaceous,
acute; pedicels to 2 mm long, to 0.5 mm wide, triangular in cross section.
2n = 36.
Tripsacum floridanum grows along roadsides and in pine woods, often in
wet soils, of Florida and Cuba. It is grown as an ornamental, but it reseeds rather
too readily under some conditions. Reports of T. floridanum from Texas
are based on narrow-bladed specimens of T.
dactyloides.