WIRESTEM MUHLY
File Size: 80 KB
 
Muhlenbergia frondosa   (Poir. ) Fernald
Saline County, Kansas
Perennial
Height: 10-40 inches
Family: Poaceae - Grass Family
Flowering Period:   August, September,October
Culms: Initially simple, erect or ascending, later becoming bushy-branched and decumbent or sprawling; hollow, glabrous.
Blades: Flat or margins inrolled, lax, 1.5 to 5 inches long, 1/12 to 1/4 inch wide, glabrous or roughened.
Sheaths: Rounded to slightly keeled, glabrous.
Ligules: Membranous, lacerate-ciliate, less than 1/16 inch.
Inflorescences: Panicles, numerous, slender, spike-like, 1 to 5 inches long, ca. 2/5 inch wide, terminal and axillary; branches short, appressed to main axis; axillary panicles borne at many nodes, only partially exserted.
Spikelets: Short-stalked, 1-flowered, narrowly lanceolate, 1/10 to 1/6 inch long excluding awns; glumes nearly equal, strongly 1-nerved, narrowly lanceolate to linear, 1/12 to 1/6 inch long, acute, acuminate or short awn-tipped, usually surpassing lemma; lemma lanceolate, glabrous, tuft of short hairs at base, tip awnless or awned.
Habitat: Moist depressions of upland prairies, banks of streams, lake margins, roadsides, bottomland woods, mesic upland woods.
Distribution: Principally east 1/3 of Kansas, but scattered throughout
Origin: Native
Comments: Strongly rhizomatous. Named for Gotthilf Henry Ernest Muhlenberg, 1753-1815, Pennsylvania botanist.

Wirestem muhly
169 KB
Saline County, Kansas
Wirestem muhly inflorescence
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Saline County, Kansas
Wirestem muhly leaves
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Saline County, Kansas
Wirestem muhly
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Saline County, Kansas
Wirestem muhly
195 KB
Saline County, Kansas