HOW TO KNOW THE GRASSES 



45a. Plants producing underground spikelets on root-like 

 underground branches; aerial panicles sterile. Fig. 

 330 30b 



45b. Plants lacking iinderground spikelets; panicles fer- 

 tile 46 



46a. Panicles with spreading or drooping branches; rhi- 

 zomes present or absent 47 Figure 330 



46b. Panicles long and slender, with erect branches; plants producing 

 extensive rhizomes. Fig. 331. 



MAIDEN CANE Panicum hemitomon Schult. 



Perennial; culms hard and stiff, 50 — 150 

 cm. tall; sheaths smooth or bristly; leaf 

 blades 10 — 25 cm. long, 7 — 15 mm. wide, 

 scabrous on top; panicles slender and 

 spikelike, 15 — 30 cm. long; spikelets 2.3 — 

 2.7 mm. long. Wet ground and in water; 

 ponds and ditches, wet fields, on the At- 

 lantic and Gulf Coastal Plains. Sometimes 

 maiden cone becomes a weed in wet fields. 

 April — July. 



Figure 331 



47a. Panicle much-branched, open, the spikelets usually on long stalks, 

 not confined to the lower sides of the branches; fertile lemma not 

 hairy at the tip 48 



47b. Panicle with mostly unbranched main branches, the spikelets on 

 short stalks, mostly on the lower sides of the branches; fertile 

 lemma with a tuft of minute stiff hairs at the tip 51 



48a. Sheaths covered with stiff spreading hairs 49 



48b. Sheaths glabrous 50 



172 



