Savannah Cut Throat Grass

Panicum stenodes Griseb. FL Brit. W. Ind. 547. 1864
Pan icu m Mans Spruce; Griseb. Fl. Brit. W. Ind. 548, as synonym. 1864. Not P. Mans Ell. 1816.
Plants in small tufts, 25-50 cm. high, glabrous throughout; culms erect or reclining, very slender and wiry, producing from the middle nodes slender branches about equaling the main culm, both this and the branches bearing small, solitary or fascicled panicles from the upper nodes; leaf-sheaths very short, about 1-2 cm. long; blades 1-4 cm. long, 1-2 mm. wide, the upper often reduced to mere points, erect, firm, involute; panicles short-exserted, the lateral often partly included, 1-2 cm. long, 1-2 mm. wide, subracemose; spikelets 1.4-1.6 mm. long, about 0.7 mm. wide, elliptic, rather turgid; first glume about half the length of the spikelet, blunt, nerveless or 1 -nerved; second glume and sterile lemma equal, scarcely exceeding the fruit, 5-nerved; fruit 1.3 mm. long, 0.6 mm. wide.
Type locality: Jamaica.
Distribution: West Indies and Costa Rica to Brazil.

Perennials, Terrestrial, not aquatic, Stems nodes swollen or brittle, Stems erect or ascending, Stems caespitose, tufted, or clustered, Stems terete, round in cross section, or polygonal, Stem internodes hollow, Stems with inflorescence less than 1 m tall, Stems, culms, or scapes exceeding basal leaves, Leaves mostly cauline, Leaves conspicuously 2-ranked, distichous, Leaves sheathing at base, Leaf sheath mostly open, or loose, Leaf sheath smooth, glabrous, Leaf sheath hairy, hispid or prickly, Leaf sheath hairy at summit, throat, or collar, Leaf sheath and blade differentiated, Leaf blades linear, Leaf blades very narrow or filiform, less than 2 mm wide, Leaf blades 2-10 mm wide, Leaf blades mostly flat, Leaf blades mostly glabrous, Leaf blades more or less hairy, Leaf blades scabrous, roughened, or wrinkled, Ligule present, Ligule an unfringed eciliate membrane, Inflorescence terminal, Inflorescence a contracted panicle , narrowly paniculate, branches appressed or ascending, Inflorescence solitary, with 1 spike, fascicle, glomerule, head, or cluster per stem or culm, Inflorescence branches more than 10 to numerous, Flowers bisexual, Spikelets pedicellate, Spikelets dorsally compressed or terete, Spikelet less than 3 mm wide, Spikelets with 1 fertile floret, Spikelets with 2 florets, Spikelet with 1 fertile floret and 1-2 sterile florets, Spikelets solitary at rachis nodes, Spikelets all alike and fertille, Spikelets bisexual, Spikelets disarticulating below the glumes, Rachilla or pedicel glabrous, Glumes present, empty bracts, Glumes 2 clearly present, Glumes distinctly unequal, Glumes equal to or longer than adjacent lemma, Glume equal to or longer than spikelet, Glumes 3 nerved, Glumes 4-7 nerved, Lemma similar in texture to glumes, Lemma 5-7 nerved, Lemma glabrous, Lemma apex truncate, rounded, or obtuse, Lemma awnless, Lemma margins inrolled, tightly covering palea and caryopsis, Lemma straight, Palea present, well developed, Palea about equal to lemma, Stamens 3, Styles 2-fid, deeply 2-branched, Stigmas 2, Fruit - caryopsis, Caryopsis ellipsoid, longitudinally grooved, hilum long-linear.