Tripsacum floridanum

Porter ex Vasey
Common names: Florida gamagrass
Treatment appears in FNA Volume 25. Treatment on page 696.

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.

Discussion

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. flori¬danum from Texas are based on narrow-bladed speci¬mens of T. dactyloides.

Selected References

None.

Lower Taxa

None.