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Stout Woodreed (Cinna arundinacea)

• Family: Grass (Poaceae)
• Flowering: July-September.
• Field Marks: This is the only perennial grass that may grow 5 feet tall and have foot long gray-green panicles composed of 1-flowered spikelets up to 1/6-1/4 inch long with a 3-nerved short-awned lemma.
• Habitat: Moist woods, meadows, damp thickets, along streams, particularly abundant in shaded habitats.
• Habit: Herbaceous perennial with short rhizomes.
• Stems: 1-several, erect, smooth, up to 5 feet tall.
• Leaves: Alternate, very long and narrow, up to 2/3 inch broad, slightly rough to the touch; sheaths smooth; ligules up to 1/3 inch long.
• Flowers: 1 per spikelet, with many spikelets on ascending branches in a gray-green panicle up to 1 foot long; spikelets 1/6-1/4 inch long; glumes lanceolate, pointed; lemma 3-nerved, with a very short awn.
• Grains: Yellow, ellipsoid.
• Notes: The tiny grains formed by this grass are eaten by waterfowl.