Southern Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Arthraxon hispidus (Thunb.) Makino
- Family: Grass (Poaceae)
- Flowering: September-October
- Field Marks: This grass is identified by its creeping habit, its short, broad leaves that are heart-shaped at the base, and its sessile, 1-flowered spikelet, sometimes with a twisted awn.
- Habitat: Floodplain forests, wet ditches, moist pastures, along shores.
- Habit: Annual grass with fibrous roots, rooting at the nodes.
- Stems: Very slender, wiry, creeping or the flowering stems upright, much branched, smooth, the branches up to 4 inches long, sometimes reddish purple.
- Leaves: Ovate to lanceolate, pointed at the tip, heart-shaped at the base, smooth or somewhat hairy on the leaves, up to 3 inches long, up to 1 inch wide; sheaths hispid.
- Flowers: Flowers borne in spikelets, with the spikelets arranged in 2-10 often crowded racemes, the racemes up to 1 1/2 inches long.
- Spikelets: 1-flowered, sessile, up to 1/4 inch long, sometimes with a twisted awn.
- Sepals: 0.
- Petals: 0.
- Stamens: 3.
- Pistils: Ovary superior.
- Grains: Slender, yellowish, up to 1/6 inch long.
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