Schizachne

Plants perennial; loosely cespitose. Culms 30-110 cm, glabrous, often decumbent at the base; nodes glabrous, becoming dark. Sheaths closed almost to the top; ligules membranous, margins often united in front; blades folded or loosely involute, glabrous or pilose. Inflorescences panicles or racemes, with 4-20 spikelets; branches straight and appressed to lax and drooping. Spikelets slightly laterally compressed, with 3-6 florets; disarticulation above the glumes and beneath the florets. Glumes exceeded by the lowest lemma in each spikelet, chartaceous, often anthocyanic below, the upper 1/3 hyaline; calluses rounded, with hairs; lemmas chartaceous, slightly scabrous, 7-9-veined, veins parallel, conspicuous, apices scarious, bifid, awned from below the teeth, awns 8-15 mm, divergent or slightly geniculate; paleas shorter than the lemmas, 2-veined, veins ciliate, keeled; lodicules truncate; anthers 3; ovaries glabrous. Caryopses 3.2-3.8 mm, smooth, shiny, falling free of the lemma and palea. x = 10.

Distribution

Conn., Mass., Maine, N.H., Vt., Wis., W.Va., Fla., Wyo., N.J., N.Mex., N.Y., Alta., B.C., Man., N.B., Nfld. And Labr., N.S., N.W.T., Ont., P.E.I., Que., Sask., Yukon, Pa., R.I., Va., Colo., Alaska, Ill., Ind., Iowa, N.Dak., Nebr., S.Dak., Md., Ohio, Utah, Minn., Mich., Mont., Ky.

Discussion

Schizachne is a monospecific genus that extends across North America in boreal regions and southwards in the montane areas, as well as from the Ural Mountains of Russia to Kamchatka and Japan.

Selected References

Koyama, T. and S. Kawano. 1964. Critical taxa of grasses with North American and eastern Asiatic distribution. Canad. J. Bot. 42:859-884

McNeill, J. and W.G. Dore. 1976. Taxonomic and nomenclatural notes on Ontario grasses. Naturaliste Canad. 103:553-567

Tsvelev, N.N. 1976. Zlaki SSSR. Nauka, Leningrad [St. Petersburg], Russia. 788 pp.

Lower Taxa

Schizachne purpurascens