Aquatic and Wetland Vascular Plants of the Northern Great Plains
63. Poaceae, the Grass Family
7. Catabrosa Beauv.1. Catabrosa aquatica (L.) Beauv. -- Brookgrass
Loosely tufted or sprawling perennial 2-4 dm tall; culms thick but weak, often prostrate, branching and rooting at the nodes in mud or water. Leaf blades soft, flat, mostly less than 15 cm long, 3-8(15) mm wide, glabrous, the tip acuminate, mucronate or obtuse; sheaths glabrous; ligule scarious, elongate, 1-4 mm long. Panicle pyramidal or oblong, open, 10-20 cm long. Spikelets mostly 2-flowered or frequently mostly 1-flowered, golden or brown, 2-4 mm long, disarticulating above the glumes; rachilla joint elongate, the second floret (when present) well above the first; glumes unequal to nearly equal, scarious and nerveless at the tip, 1-2 mm long, the first smaller, ovate, the second broadest toward the tip, truncate and erose; lemmas truncate and erose at the apex, 1.5-2.5 mm long, 3-nerved; palea much like the lemma, 2-nerved; anthers 1-2 mm long. Grain brown, ellipsoid, ca. 1.5 mm long. Jun--early Sep. Springs, streams and seepage areas, where water is fresh; occasional, mostly in the n and w parts; (Newf. and Labr. to Alta., s to WI, NE, CO, AZ, NV and WA; also Eurasia).
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