Common Name: ditch rabbitsfoot grass

Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Graminoid

General: Tufted perennial decumbent at base, rooting at nodes, stems 20-80 cm.

Vegetative: Sheaths smooth to scaberulous, blades 5-9 cm long, 3-6 mm wide, broad, flat and scabrous; ligules 2-6 mm long, stout and narrowed to an obtuse to truncate apex, entire to lacerate-erose.

Inflorescence: Panicles 3-15 cm long, 0.5-3 cm wide, usually interrupted or lobed, pedicels not developed, but branches erect; spikelets 1-flowered, glumes 2-3 mm, keeled, hispidulous, narrowed abruptly into terminal awns, sometimes minutely bilobed, awns 1.5-3 mm; lemmas 0.5-1.5 mm, glabrous, smooth and shiny, awned with awns 1-3.5 mm.

Ecology: Found on moist soil or in water along streams and meadows from to 7,500 ft (2286 m); flowers May-August.

Notes: Distinguished from P. monospelensis by the panicle being more lobed and interrupted with shorter awns on the glumes.

Ethnobotany: Unknown

Etymology: Polypogon is from Greek polys, many and pogon, beard, while interruptus means interrupted.

Synonyms: Polypogon lutosus, many others, see Tropicos

Editor: SBuckley, 2010