Please try our next iteration of the Michigan Flora Online here. Beginning on February 1, 2023, michiganflora.net will point to this new site.

The new site offers several benefits over the existing website, including real coordinate mapping, giving a clearer view of the density of documentation as well as more precision about plant distributions and their link to landforms. We will also have the ability to update species pages more regularly, both in terms of new collections and as more existing Michigan specimens are georeferenced. In addition, we have a better photo display, and offer indented keys.

R. W. Smith

All Images Enlarge Image

Almost ubiquitous in all but the wettest places; found in disturbed ground, forests, dunes, fields. A complex species mostly introduced from Eurasia (first collected in Washtenaw Co. in 1838) and a very important cultivated lawn and pasture grass. Populations of northern shores, rocks, and open forests are perhaps native.

The sheaths and leaf blades toward the base of the plant are occasionally pubescent. Some specimens of P. palustris might run here if the lemmas are ± 5-nerved, but can be distinguished by their longer ligules, shorter anthers, and less copious callus web, as well as lack of elongated rhizomes. Plants with very narrow or involute basal leaves (narrower than the culm) and usually occurring in drier sites are subsp. angustifolia (L.) Lej., which occurs sparingly throughout the state.

Citation: