Western Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Beckmannia syzigachne (Steud.) Fernald
- Family: Grass (Gramineae)
- Flowering: July-August
- Field Marks: This distinctive grass has narrow panicles that consist of many crowded, 1-flowered, round spikelets, with broad, compressed, 3-veined plumes, pointed lemmas, flat leaves up to 1/2 inch wide, and ligules at least 1/4 inch long.
- Habitat: Along streams, in marshes, around ponds and lakes, in wet roadside ditches.
- Habit: Annual herb with fibrous roots, but sometimes forming stolons.
- Stems: Upright, hollow, usually unbranched, up to 3 1/2 feet tall, without hairs.
- Leaves: Alternate, elongated, flat, up to 1/2 inch wide, long-tapering to the tip, without hairs; ligules at least 1/4 inch long.
- Flowers: Borne in 1-flowered spikelets, the spikelets crowded into narrow panicles up to 1 foot long, each spikelet round, up to 1/6 inch long; glumes broad, compressed, 3-veined, usually smooth; lemmas pointed, smooth.
- Sepals: 0.
- Petals: 0.
- Stamens: 3.
- Pistils: Ovary superior, smooth.
- Grains: Nearly spherical, smooth.
- Notes: The grains are eaten by waterfowl.
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