Erect Leaf Rosette Grass

Panicum erectifolium Nash, Bull. Torrey Club 23: 148. 1896
Panicum sphaerocarpon floridanum Vasey, Bull. U. S. Dep. Agr. Bot. 8: 33. 1889. Panicum floridanum Chapm. Fl. S. U. S. ed. 3. 585. 1897. Not P. floridanum Trin. 1835.
Vernal plants dull-green, sometimes bluish, in tufts of few to several culms, 30-70 cm. high, erect or ascending, usually stout, glabrous, including the nodes; leaf-sheaths, except the uppermost, short, rather loose, usually crowded and overlapping at the base, ciliate on the margin, otherwise glabrous; ligule about 0.3 mm. long; blades thick and firm with inconspicuous veins, ascending or erect, 7-1 3 cm. long, 6-12 mm. wide, the crowded lower ones usually much larger than the others, these successively smaller upward, tapering from the cordate base to the acuminate apex, smooth on both surfaces, the margins scabrous, stiffly ciliate toward the base; panicles exserted, 6-12 cm. long, half to two thirds as wide, densely flowered, the lower branches usually narrowly ascending; spikelets 1-1.2 mm. long, 0.8-1 mm. wide, broadly ovate or subspheric, densely puberulent; first glume one fifth to one fourth the length of the spikelet, obtuse; second glume and sterile lemma equaling the fruit at maturity; fruit oval, very obscurely
umbonate.
Autumnal phase remaining erect and simple or late in the season producing branches from the third or fourth node, the branches nearly as long as the primary culm, rarely again branching; winter rosettes appearing late, the blades 3-10 cm. long.
Type locality: Florida.
Distribution: North Carolina to Florida and Louisiana; Cuba.

.