Southern Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Axonopus affinis Chase
- Family: Grass (Poaceae)
- Flowering: June-October
- Field Marks: The spikelets of this grass, which are arranged in two rows on each spike, are silky-hairy.
- Habitat: Wet to dry soils in fields, lawns, sandy shores, ditches, and open woodlands.
- Habit: Annual, mat-forming grass forming stolons, rooting at the nodes.
- Stems: Smooth, creeping, except for the ascending flowering stems, up to 3 feet tall at maturity, smooth.
- Leaves: Basal or near the base of the stems, elongated, more or less rounded at the tip, smooth or slightly hairy, rough along the margins, up to 6 inches long, up to 1/2 inch wide.
- Flowers: Borne in spikelets on slender, elongated, erect spikes, the spikes usually 2 or 3 in number.
- Spikelets: 1-flowered, sessile, alternating on 2 sides of the 3-sided axis, up to 1/8 inch long, usually silky-hairy.
- Sepals: 0.
- Petals: 0.
- Stamens: 3.
- Pistils: Ovary superior.
- Grains: Ellipsoid, flat, yellowish or grayish.
- Notes: This grass was widely planted in the South as a pasture grass, but is no longer in favor.
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Return to Species List -- Group 2
Next Species -- Broad-leaf Signal Grass (Brachiaria platyphylla)
