Southern Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Sacciolepis striata (L.) Nash
- Family: Grass (Poaceae)
- Flowering: July-October
- Field Marks: Species of Sacciolepsis have 1-flowered spikelets borne in crowded, spike-like panicles or racemes. They differ from any other grasses including the closely related Panicum by their swollen, sac-like, second glume. Sacciolepis striata differs from Sacciolepis indica by being a perennial with creeping stolons.
- Habitat: Marshes, ditches, sloughs, margins of bayous and streams, pools, around ponds and lakes.
- Habit: Perennial grass with creeping stolons, rooting at the nodes, often forming large colonies.
- Stems: Creeping, slender, weak, ocassionally producing upright branches up to 3 feet tall, smooth.
- Leaves: Elongated, narrow, flat, up to 8 inches long, up to 1 inch wide, smooth; sheaths hairy.
- Flowers: Borne in spikelets, with numerous spikelets crowded into elongated spike-like panicles; panicles up to 8 inches long.
- Spikelets: 1-flowered, up to 1/4 inch long, with an inflated second glume.
- Sepals: 0.
- Petals: 0.
- Stamens: 3.
- Pistils: Ovary superior.
- Grains: Gray, ellipsoid, about 1/16 inch long.
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