Culms 18-145 cm tall, 0.6-4.8 mm thick, erect to decumbent, sometimes matted. Ligules of larger cauline leaves 2-9 mm, truncate or acute to attenuate; widest cauline blades 1.5-17.5 mm wide. Panicles (3)5-25 cm long, (1)1.8-16 cm wide, 1-5.75(7.5) times as long as wide, narrowly to widely conic, ovoid, or obovoid; lowermost branches stiff to flexuous, reflexed to erect at maturity. Spikelets 3.6-6.9 mm; florets 2-8. Lower glumes 0.7-2.1 mm; upper glumes 0.9-2.7 mm; lemmas 2-3.6 mm, truncate to acute; anthers 0.3-1.5 mm. 2n = 14.

All three varieties of Torreyochloa pallida grow in swamps, marshes, bogs, and the margins of lakes and streams. They are usually morphologically distinct and tend to have different geographic ranges.

Culms 3-10 dm, slender and weak, usually ±decumbent and creeping at base; lvs soft, 2-10 mm wide; ligules 2.5-9 mm; infl 5-15 cm, with relatively few branches, eventually diffuse; spikelets narrowly ovate, 4-7 mm, 4-6-fld; glumes broadly rounded at the scarious tip, the first 0.9-2.1 mm, the second 1.1-2.4 mm; lemmas 2-3.5 mm, ovate, sharply 5-veined, finely hairy or scaberulous, erose at the rounded tip; palea 4-5 times as long as wide; anthers 0.3-1.5 mm; 2n=14. Swamps and shallow water; Nf. to Minn., s. to N.C. and Mo. (Torreyochloa p.; Glyceria p.; P. fernaldii, plants at the small end of the range in all dimensions)

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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