Southern Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Panicum capillare L.
- Family: Grass (Poaceae)
- Flowering: July-September
- Field Marks: This Panicum is distinguished by its dense arrangement of thread-like panicle branches and its densely hairy leaf sheaths.
- Habitat: Moist or dry soils in cultivated fields, roadsides, disturbed soils.
- Habit: Tufted, sprawling, annual grass.
- Stems: Upright or ascending, unbranched or sparsely branched, up to 2 feet long.
- Leaves: Elongated, narrow, up to 1 foot long, up to 2/3 inch wide, usually hairy; sheaths densely hairy.
- Flowers: 1 per spikelet, with numerous spikelets on thread-like stalks forming a dense, terminal panicle up to 14 inches long.
- Spikelets: 1-flowered, pointed, about 1/20 inch long.
- Sepals: 0.
- Petals: 0.
- Stamens: 3.
- Pistils: Ovary superior.
- Grains: Yellowish, enclosed by a hardened scale.
Previous Species -- Basket Grass (Oplismenus hirtellus)
Return to Species List -- Group 2
Next Species -- Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum)
