Southern Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Echinochloa walteri (Pursh) A. Heller
- Family: Grass (Poaceae)
- Flowering: July-October
- Field Marks: This distinctive grass is recognized by its 1-2 inch long reddish purple awns on the lemmas.
- Habitat: Wet ditches, along shores, swamps, marshes, wet disturbed soil, sometimes in shallow standing water.
- Habit: Coarse annual grass with fibrous roots.
- Stems: Upright, coarse, smooth, up to 6 feet tall.
- Leaves: Elongated and relatively broad, up to 15 inches long, up to 1 1/2 inches wide, smooth but rough to the touch on the edges; sheaths smooth, or more commonly hairy with swollen, basal hairs.
- Flowers: Borne in spikelets, with numerous spikelets arranged in panicles up to 1 foot long, the panicles usually arching or nodding.
- Spikelets: 1-flowered, crowded on the branches, ellipsoid, hairy; lemmas often with purplish awns up to 2 inches long.
- Sepals: 0.
- Petals: 0.
- Stamens: 3.
- Pistils: Ovary superior.
- Grains: Ellipsoid, whitish, up to 1/10 inch long.
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Return to Species List -- Group 2
Next Species -- Purple Lovegrass (Eragrostis spectabilis)
