| Author | (Desvaux ex Hamilton) B.F. Hansen & Wunderlin | |
| Distribution | Coastal Plain, including the Outer Banks and Carolina Bay country, but absent from the Sandhills proper.
Coastal Plain, southeastern VA to southern FL and eastern TX; W.I.; Belize. | |
| Abundance | Common to abundant in the southern Coastal Plain, but uncommon in the northern part of the province. | |
| Habitat | Moist to seasonally dry sandy soil of savannas, flatwoods, interdune pond margins, sinkhole pond margins. May be abundant in disturbed soils, scrapes, and clearings in the above habitats. | |
| Phenology | Flowering and fruiting May-October. | |
| Identification | This is among the smaller witchgrasses; the stems normally only 5-8 inches tall. This and a few other taxa are notable in having pale or pastel green spikelets. From D. webberianum it differs in its shorter spikelets (1.9-2.2 mm vs. 2.2-2.6 mm) and smooth palea and fertile lemma (vs. papillose). | |
| Taxonomic Comments | Includes plants formerly named Panicum lancearium.
A note about Dichanthelium: This genus is not impossible to identify to species! But it takes applied effort over a period of time in order to learn the various species and what their morphological limits are. We strongly recommend that you read the introduction to the treatment in Weakley et al. (2023), written by Richard LeBlond. LeBlond has made order out of near chaos, and his keys work very well for our plants. Most Dichanthelium taxa ("Dichs") do not grow everywhere indiscrimminately, but prefer certain well-defined habitats. Note that most species produce flowers/fruits twice a year -- a vernal period and an autumnal period -- and that measurements of spikelets and achenes are taken from vernal plants. Some species also have a third, or summer, period. In the vernal period there is a single inflorescence at the tip of the stem. In the autumnal period, plants produce elongate branches with bunched (congested) leaves and so look quite different from vernal plants. Inflorescences are produced in leaf axils as well as at the tips of branches. NOTE: Older texts had these species essentially all within the very large genus Panicum. "Dich" species are typically named as "Witchgrass" and Panicum species named as "Panicgrass". | |
| Other Common Name(s) | None | |
| State Rank | [S4] | |
| Global Rank | G5 | |
| State Status | | |
| US Status | | |
| USACE-agcp | FACU link |
| USACE-emp | FACU link |
