Vascular Plants of North Carolina
Section: Common Name: Scientific Name: Family:
Account for Lindheimer's Witchgrass - Dichanthelium acuminatum var. lindheimeri   (Nash) Gould & Clark
Members of Poaceae:
Members of Dichanthelium with account distribution info or public map:
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Section 5 » Order Cyperales » Family Poaceae
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Author(Nash) Gould & Clark
DistributionScattered across much of the state. The map is incomplete and only contains specimens verified at UNC Chapel Hill (and a few other herbaria) by LeBlond.

N.S. to Man. south to FL, MO, and CA.
AbundanceUncommon.
HabitatRiverside gravels and cobbles, streambanks, lake shores, moist to wet clearings.
PhenologyFlowering and fruiting May-September.
IdentificationSimilar to Woolly Witchgrass and to Western Woolly Witchgrass, but lacks hairs on stems and leaf sheaths. This is the least hairy member of this species group.
Taxonomic CommentsA 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)
State RankSU [S3S4]
Global RankG5T5
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