Northeast Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Muhlenbergia uniflora (Muhl.) Fernald
- Family: Grass (Gramineae)
- Flowering: July-October
- Field Marks: This Muhlenbergia differs by its open panicles, the very slender stems that arise from the base of last year's stems, and the very short glumes in relation to the lemma.
- Habitat: Bogs, wet shores.
- Habit: Matted perennial herb from thickened rootstocks, without rhizomes, arising from the base of last year's stems.
- Stems: Very slender, decumbent, rooting at the nodes, matted, up to 1 1/4 feet tall, smooth.
- Leaves: Elongated, flat, smooth, 1/12-1/10 inch wide.
- Flowers: Several in a widely branching panicle, the panicle up to 8 inches long and up to 3 inches wide, the branches very slender to nearly thread-like; spikelets usually 1-flowered, purplish, up to 1/10 inch long, on thread-like stalks much longer than the spikelets.
- Glumes: Ovate to lanceolate, rounded or pointed at the tip, subequal in length, smooth, about 1/2 as long as the lemma.
- Lemmas: Lanceolate, rounded at the tip, smooth, up to 1/10 inch long.
- Sepals: 0.
- Petals: 0.
- Stamens: 3.
- Pistils: Ovary superior, smooth.
- Fruits: Grains ellipsoid.
- Notes: Gleason and Cronquist call this family Poaceae.
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