Vascular Plants of North Carolina
Section: Common Name: Scientific Name: Family:
Account for Dense Redtop Panicgrass - Coleataenia rigidula ssp. condensa   (Nash) LeBlond
Members of Poaceae:
Members of Coleataenia with account distribution info or public map:
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Section 5 » Family Poaceae
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Author(Nash) LeBlond
DistributionInner and outer Coastal Plain, with a gap between. Also occurs locally on the Outer Banks.

Coastal Plain, MA to FL, TX, and AR; West Indies.
AbundanceUncommon.
HabitatFreshwater marshes, streamside backup marshes, maritime wet grasslands, maritime interdune swales.
PhenologyFlowering and fruiting September-October.
IdentificationC. rigida stands out by its broad and long leaves (up to 20 mm wide by up to 1.6 feet long) and tall stems 2.5-5 feet. Subspecies condensa has strongly ascending to appressed inflorescence branches, whereas subspecies rigidula has an open inflorescence with spreading branches.
Taxonomic CommentsIn older texts Panicum agrostoides var. condensum.

Members of the genus Coleataenia have been split from Panicum by the subsessile spikelets (nearly stalkless, vs. stalk greater than 2 mm long) and spikelets which grow only on one side of each branch (vs. essentially on all sides). C. anceps and C. rigidula have lower stems relatively flattened, unlike Panicum.
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State Rank[S3]
Global RankG5T5?
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USACE-agcp
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B.A. SorrieCape Hatteras NS, interdune marsh/pond, S of Buxton, Oct 2012. DareBILPhoto_natural
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