Northeast Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Muhlenbergia schreberi J.F. Gmel.
- Family: Grass (Gramineae)
- Flowering: July-November
- Field Marks: This muhly is distinguished by its sprawling, mat-like growth form, its lemmas with awns as long as or twice as long as the body, and its glumes much shorter than the lemma.
- Habitat: Disturbed soil, swamps.
- Habit: Perennial herb without rhizomes.
- Stems: Sprawling and rooting at the nodes, except for the ascending tips, branched, up to 2 feet long, with hairless internodes.
- Leaves: Elongated, flat, smooth, up to 1/6 inch wide.
- Flowers: Borne in slender, contracted, spike-like panicles, the panicles up to 8 inches long, up to 1/3 inch thick, usually greenish; spikelets 1-flowered, about 1/8 inch long.
- Glumes: First glume reduced or obsolete, the second glume small, much shorter than the lemma, ovate to orbicular, rounded at the shallowly jagged-toothed tip, smooth, about 1/36 inch long.
- Lemmas: Lanceolate to elliptic, up to 1/8 inch long, hairy at the base, with an awn up to 1/6 inch long.
- Sepals: 0.
- Petals: 0.
- Stamens: 3.
- Pistils: Ovary superior, smooth.
- Fruits: Grains about 1/20 inch long, smooth, loosely enclosed by the lemmas.
- Notes: This grass may sometimes be a troublesome weed in lawns. This family is called Poaceae by Gleason and Cronquist.
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