| Author | (Bertoloni) Nash | |
| Distribution | Sandhills and southern outer Coastal Plain. The gap is apparently real, but may possibly reflect a general lack of burning over the past century.
Southeastern VA to southeastern MO and eastern OK, south to southern FL and eastern TX. | |
| Abundance | Uncommon in the Sandhills, but rare to uncommon in the outer Coastal Plain. This is a Watch List species. | |
| Habitat | Mesic to dry, loamy soil of Longleaf Pine pea swales, flats, and savannas. Recurring fire is important to population viability. This species is an indicator of loamy soils, pea swales, and "bean dips" (slight but dry depressions with an abundance of legume species). |
| Phenology | Flowering and fruiting July-October. | |
| Identification | Pitchfork Crowngrass is generally 2-3 feet tall, occasionally to 4 feet. The plant is glaucescent (pale gray-green or blue-green) all over, and glaucous (whitish) on the undersides of the leaves. The only other crowngrass in NC that is overall glaucescent/glaucous is the glabrous form of P. floridanum, which is more robust and has strongly overlapping spikelet pairs (vs. only a little or no overlapping in P. bifidum). | |
| Taxonomic Comments | None
Paspalum is a genus of more than 300 species, found mostly in the New World. The genus is quite easily identified by the neat row of spikelets along each side of a flattened rachis (inflorescence branch), and also by the hemispherical outline of each spikelet. In some species there are only 2 such inflorescence branches, paired at the stem summit; in most of our species there are 3-4 branches; and in a few there may be many. Keys ask whether spikelets are paired or not -- that is, at each node on each side of the rachis there are pairs of spikelets on tiny stalklets. Care must be taken with a hand lens to make sure there are 2 stalklets at each node, as frequently one of the two spikelets will not grow. Non-paired or single spikelets will clearly have only a single stalklet per node. | |
| Other Common Name(s) | Pitchfork Paspalum | |
| State Rank | S3 | |
| Global Rank | G5 | |
| State Status | W1 | |
| US Status | | |
| USACE-agcp | FACW link |
| USACE-emp | FACW link |
