Vascular Plants of North Carolina

Vascular Plants of North Carolina

Account for Narrowleaf Witchgrass - Dichanthelium angustifolium (Elliott) Gould

Members of Poaceae:

Members of Dichanthelium with account distribution info or public map:

Section 5 » Family Poaceae

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Author	(Elliott) Gould
Distribution	Coastal Plain, Sandhills, and lower Piedmont; disjunct to the southern Mountains. Our map is conservative and reflects only those specimens annotated by LeBlond. Mostly Coastal Plain, NJ to FL and TX; inland to TN, KY, and AR.
Abundance	Fairly common to frequent in the Coastal Plain and Sandhills; rare to uncommon in the Piedmont, but very rare in the Mountains. The editors suggest a State Rank of S4S5, with the presumption that it occurs in many more eastern NC counties than shown on the map.
Habitat	Dry to mesic pine-oak woodlands, pine-oak-dogwood woodlands, Longleaf Pine savannas and uplands, sandy clearings.
Phenology	Flowering and fruiting May-October.
Identification	Narrowleaf Witchgrass is one of the more distinct species of the genus in NC, in its very long leaves that typically are 20 times as along as wide (vs. 10-15 times as long as wide) and not inrolled (involute) as in most D. aciculare individuals. In the field it is an elegant grass, with fewer branches and leaves (less "busy" looking) than the latter species.
Taxonomic Comments	FNA treats it as a subspecies of D. aciculare, but Narrowleaf Witchgrass is likely not closely related. 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)	Narrowleaf Rosette-grass
State Rank	[S4S5]
Global Rank	G5
State Status
US Status
USACE-agcp
USACE-emp

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