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Carolina Foxtail (Alopecurus carolinianus)

• Family: Grass (Poaceae)
• Flowering: April-August
• Field Marks: This small grass is distinguished by its soft, erect, unbranched spikes and its annual habit.
• Habitat: Fallow fields, roadside ditches, around ponds, wet meadows, in sloughs.
• Habit: Annual herb with fibrous roots.
• Stems: Spreading or erect, sometimes branched, smooth or nearly so, up to 1 foot tall.
• Leaves: Narrow but rather short, up to 3 inches long, up to 1/10 inch broad, rough to the touch.
• Flowers: Borne in 1-flowered spikelets, with many spikelets crowded into a rather soft spike at the tip of the stem, the spikes up to 3 inches long, spikelets about 1/12 inch long, the scales rounded or somewhat pointed at the tip, smooth, with a slender awn arising near the base of the scale and protruding out of the spike.
• Sepals: 0.
• Petals: 0.
• Stamens: 3.
• Pistils: Ovary superior; styles 2.
• Grains: Very tiny, elongated, smooth.