Panicum stagnatile Hitchc. & Chase

Panicum stagnatile Hitchc. & Chase, Contr. U. S. Nat. Herb
17: 528. 1915.
Plants perennial, gregarious ; culms erect from an ascending or decumbent base rooting at the nodes, somewhat succulent, 1-2 meters high, about 5 mm. thick, glabrous, simple or occasionally with sterile branches; nodes glabrous or the lower retrorsely appressed-pubescent; leafsheaths usually about as long as the internodes or the upper overlapping, ciliate on the margin, otherwise glabrous or pubescent on the sides at the juncture with the blade; ligule membranaceous, less than 1 mm. long; blades fiat, 20-35 cm. long, 1,5-3 cm. wide, slightly narrowed to the rounded base, tapering from below the middle to an acuminate apex, sparingly pilose above the ligule, otherwise glabrous, the margins scabrous; panicles 20-40 cm. long, about half as wide, fusiform in outline, the main axis and rachises strongly angled, scabrous, usually sparsely pilose in the lower axils, the numerous slender, compound branches rather stiffly ascending or spreading, solitary or irregularly fascicled, bearing from near the base and usually along the lower side rather stiffly spreading slender secondary branchlets, the lower 1-2 cm. long; spikelets loosely clustered, short-pediceled, glabrous, 1.8 mm. long, about 0.6 mm. wide, acute; first glume about one third as long as the spikelet, acute, scabrous on the keeled midnerve, the second glume two thirds as long as the spikelet, somewhat boat-shaped, scabrous on the keel, the sterile lemma slightly exceeding the fruit, boat-shaped and scabrous on the midnerve at the apex; fruit 1.6 mm. long, 0.4 mm. wide, lanceolate, scabrous at the acute apex, the lemma and palea subindurated, the margins of the lemma inrolled only at the base.
Type locality: Frijoles, Canal Zone. Distribution: Southern Mexico to Panama.