Sporobolus vaginiflorus, Wood

Native. Annual. Propagates by seeds. Time of bloom: July to August. Seed-time: August to September. Range: Maine to South Dakota, southward to Florida and Texas. Habitat: Dry, sterile fields; waste places.

A thin, dry, and worthless grass which should not be tolerated where anything better can be made to grow. Culms tufted, fifteen to twenty inches tall, slender, smooth, divergent, or sometimes erect. Sheaths about half as long as the internodes, loose and inflated; leaves short, less than an eighth of an inch wide, smooth beneath, rough at base above, involute toward the point, Panicles very numerous, included and partly concealed in all the upper sheaths, the terminal one only being usually exserted, one to two inches long; spikelets thin, the glumes unequal, long-pointed, smooth, the lower one shorter; lemma rough and hairy and exceeded in length by the palea which is very sharp-pointed. The seed is freely self-sown as it ripens, the spikelets dropping entire from the axis. (Fig. 20.)

Fig. 20.- Sheathed Rush-grass (Sporobolus vaginiflorus). X 1/5.

Means Of Control

Cultivate and fertilize the ground, furnishing humus in order to enable it to retain moisture and support forage of a profitable quality.