Northeast Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Agrostis hyemalis (Walter) BSP.
- Family: Grass (Gramineae)
- Flowering: March-June
- Field Marks: This species of Agrostis is recognized by its roughened panicle branches and its spikelets that are only 1/16-1/8 inch long.
- Habitat: Dry or moist soil in woods and fields, bogs, meadows, roadsides.
- Habit: Tufted perennial grass with fibrous roots.
- Stems: Upright or sometimes spreading, very slender, smooth, up to 2 1/2 feet long.
- Leaves: Elongated, flat and thread-like or rolled into a cylinder, ascending, smooth, up to 1/8 inch wide.
- Flowers: Borne in spikelets, the spikelets many in a loose panicle, the panicle branches divergent from the main axis, usually purple at maturity, the panicle up to 1 foot long, the branches of the panicle thread-like, rough to the touch.
- Spikelets: 1-flowered, 1/16-1/8 inch long, the glumes pointed at the tip; lemma shorter than the glume, blunt at the tip.
- Sepals: 0.
- Petals: 0.
- Stamens: 3.
- Pistils: Ovary superior.
- Fruits: Grains ellipsoid, smooth.
- Notes: Gleason and Cronquist use Poaceae for the name of this family. This species is sometimes called ticklegrass.
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