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Aristida purpurascens - (image 1 of 3)

Taxonomy

Family: Poaceae

Habitat

Dry sandy soil and prairies.

Associates

Distribution

MA to southern Ontario, WI, and KS, south to FL and TX.

Morphology

Herbaceous perennial; culms 40-100 cm, tufted on a knotty base; leaves to 20 cm, mostly flat, 1-4 mm wide; lower sheaths covering the nodes, usually more or less pilose; inflorescence 10-20 cm, slender, loosely or densely spike-like, with short, ascending or appressed branches; glumes 1-veined, the first 8-14 mm, scabrous on the keel and sometimes on the sides, the second 6.5-11.5 mm, almost always exceeding the lemma and exceeded by the first glume; lemma 5.5-9.5 mm; awns about equally divergent, the central one 2-3.5 cm, the lateral 1.5-2.5 cm.

Notes

Flowers July to September

Wetland indicator: UPL

Photographed in a sand prairie in northwest Ohio.

References

Gleason, Henry A. and A. Cronquist. 1991. Manual of Vascular Plants of Northeastern United States and Adjacent Canada. Second Ed.
The New York Botanical Garden. Bronx, NY

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