Perennial

Similar species: No information at this time.

Flowering: August to October

Habitat and ecology: Introduced from the southern United States, this species is very rare in waste ground.

Occurence in the Chicago region: non-native

Etymology: Bothriochloa comes from the Greek words bothros, meaning trench, and chloe meaning grass. Saccharoides means "resembling Saccharum (sugarcane)."

Author: The Morton Arboretum

Common Name: silver bluestem

Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Graminoid

General: Bunchgrass with stems 30-80 cm tall, erect, unbranched; nodes prominently bearded, hairs 3-7 mm, spreading and silvery white.

Vegetative: Mostly basal leaves with ligules 1-2.5 mm, blades 5-30 cm long, 2-3 mm wide, flat to folded, glabrous or sparsely hispid above, pilose near the throat.

Inflorescence: Panicles 4-9 cm, oblong to fan-shaped, rachises 1-5 cm with 2-9 branches that are 4-8 cm, longer than rachises, with one inflorescence branch with stalked and sessile spikelets (rame); with internodes with a membranous groove wider than the margins, margins densely white-villous, hairs 5-10 mm, obscuring the sessile spikelets; sessile spikelets 5.5-8.5 mm, lanceolate, lower glumes densely short-pilose on lower half, sometimes with a dorsal pit, awns 18-26; sterile pedicillate spikelets 3.5-5.5 mm.

Ecology: Found on rocky flats, in sandy soils, and along roadsides from 3,000-8,500 ft (914-2591 m); flowers April-October.

Notes: See entry for Bothriochloa  laguroides. Tropicos sees this species as synonymous with Bothriochloa laguroides; however, Allred in FNA considers the two taxa to be separate species, stating that B. saccharoides is more southern (i.e. not in N. America) and thus most material from the US identified as B. saccharoides should probably be annotated as B. laguroides. Differs from B. barbinodis in the less robust growth form; narrower blades; longer nodal hairs; fewer, hairier panicle branches; and also the rachises are less than 5 cm long.

Ethnobotany: Unknown

Etymology: Bothriochloa is from the Greek bothros, a pit or hole, and chloe or chloa, grass, alluding to the small pit on the first glume of some species in the genus; saccharoides sugary or sweet.

Synonyms: Many, see Tropicos

Editor: SBuckley, 2010, AHazelton 2017