Cut Grass

This species flowers from August to October and has a habit of climbing over other plants on the river banks and ditches where it is found. It seems to tolerate quite acid conditions but needs stagnant or slow-moving water with a regular seasonal rainfall or water-level rise.

Cut-grass is listed under the UK Biodiversity Action Plans and included in English Nature's Species Recovery Programme. The largest remaining population of this plant has been monitored for over twenty years, and the information from this extended survey will be used to influence the management at all the other sites. It may also be possible to reintroduce the plant to suitable sites in the future.

Cut-grass is a creeping perennial with flat, pale yellowish-green leaves that have rough edges. Its inflorescence is usually enclosed within a cowl-like sheath at first, and the branches when they emerge are wavy.

Cut-grass is found in wet meadows, on river-sides and in ditches. It requires nutrient-rich mud and regularly trampled bare areas in which to germinate.

This species is found over a large part of central Europe and also ranges across Asia and North America. In Britain, it is limited to five sites, only one of which has a population of reasonable size.

Classified as Endangered in the UK. Protected under Schedule 8 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act, as amended.

Whilst thought to have always been a rare plant in Britain, cut-grass is declining through the loss of traditional forms of water-course management, and the grazing that controls competitor species. There may also have been a reduction in the areas of wet grassland available for colonisation.

This widespread species has a more temperate distribution than Leersia hexandra. The panicles are sometimes produced only within inflated upper leaf sheaths, which remain included and bear cleistogamous spikelets with much smaller, 0.5 mm anthers. These enclosed panicles are produced under cooler conditions.

A plant of heavy wet soils, pond and stream margins and occasionally tidal estuaries.

Perennial, loosely tufted, with slender rhizomes. Culms weak, decumbent, rooting at lower nodes, upper part up to 120 cm tall, branching near base, scabrid below panicle, nodes retrorsely hispid. Leaf sheaths longer to slightly shorter than internodes, the upper retrorsely spinulose; leaf blades thin, 7–30 × 0.6–1 cm, scabrid on both surfaces, margins scabrid and spinulose, apex acuminate; ligule 1–2 mm, truncate. Panicle lax, ovate in outline, 10–20 cm; branches 1–3 per node, spreading, up to 10 cm, flexuous, very slender, scabrid, lower part long naked, upper part with branchlets bearing spikelets overlapping along one side of branchlets. Spikelets elliptic-oblong, 5–6 mm, whitish with green veins; lemma conspicuously pectinate-hispid on keel and margins, surface strigillose, sometimes sparsely, apex abruptly contracted, subacute. Stamens 3, anthers 1.5–2 mm. Fl. and fr. Jun–Sep. 2n = 48, 60.

Rhizomatous perennial; culms up to 1.5 m long, decumbent and sprawling, rooting at the nodes, the terminal portion erect, glabrous or somewhat scabrid-hispid near the nodes, the nodes pubescent. Leaf-blades up to 30 cm long and 1.5 cm wide, coarsely scabrid on both surfaces, often retrorsely hispid along the margins and midrib; ligule truncate, 0.5-1 mm long; sheaths scabrid and often hispidulose between the nerves. Panicle ovate or narrowly ovate, up to 30 cm long, exserted or included. Spikelets elliptic to linear, 4.5-7.5 (-8) mm long; lemma and palea glabrous or ciliate on the keels, glabrous or shortly pubescent on the body. especially along the nerves; stamens 3.

Distribution: Pakistan (N.W.F.P. & Kashmir); North America, Europe, Central Asia and Japan.

Fujian, Hainan, Heilongjiang, Hunan, Xinjiang [Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan; N Africa, SW Asia (Caucasus), Europe, North America; introduced in Australia].

Fl. & Fr. Per.: July-October.

Wet river banks, marshy places; 400–1100 m.

Phalaris oryzoides Linnaeus, Sp. Pl. 1: 55. 1753; Asprella oryzoides (Linnaeus) Lamarck; Homalocenchrus oryzoides (Linnaeus) Haller; Oryza oryzoides (Linnaeus) Brand & W. D. J. Koch.

Perennials, Terrestrial, not aquatic, Rhizomes present, Rhizome elongate, creeping, stems distant, Stolons or runners present, Stems nodes swollen or brittle, Stems erect or ascending, Stems geniculate, decumbent, or lax, sometimes rooting at nodes, Stems caespitose, tufted, or clustered, Stems terete, round in cross section, or polygonal, Stem nodes bearded or hairy, Stem internodes solid or spongy, Stem internodes hollow, Stems with inflorescence less than 1 m tall, Stems with inflorescence 1-2 m tall, Stems, culms, or scapes exceeding basal leaves, Leaves mostly basal, below middle of stem, Leaves mostly cauline, Leaves conspicuously 2-ranked, distichous, Leaves sheathing at base, Leaf sheath mostly open, or loose, Leaf sheath smooth, glabrous, Leaf sheath and blade differentiated, Leaf blades linear, Leaf blades 2-10 mm wide, Leaf blades mostly flat, Leaf blades mostly glabrous, Leaf blades scabrous, roughened, or wrinkled, Ligule present, Ligule an unfringed eciliate membrane, Inflorescence terminal, Inflorescence an open panicle, openly paniculate, branches spreading, Inflorescence solitary, with 1 spike, fascicle, glomerule, head, or cluster per stem or culm, Inflorescence lax, widely spreading, branches drooping, pendulous, Inflorescence a panicle with narrowly racemose or spicate branches, Inflorescence branches more than 10 to numerous, Lower panicle branches whorled, Flowers bisexual, Spikelets pedicellate, Spikelets laterally compressed, Spikelet less than 3 mm wide, Spikelets with 1 fertile floret, Spikelets solitary at rachis nodes, Spikelets all alike and fertille, Spikelets bisexual, Spikelets disarticulating above the glumes, glumes persistent, Rachilla or pedicel glabrous, Glumes completely absent or reduced to cuplike structure, Lemmas thin, chartaceous, hyaline, cartilaginous, or membranous, Lemma coriaceous, firmer or thicker in texture than the glumes, Lemma 3 nerved, Lemma 5-7 nerved, Lemma body or surface hairy, Lemma apex acute or acuminate, Lemma margins thin, lying flat, Lemma straight, Palea present, well developed, Palea about equal to lemma, Stamens 3, Styles 2-fid, deeply 2-branched, Stigmas 2, Fruit - caryopsis, Caryopsis ellipsoid, longitudinally grooved, hilum long-linear.

Leersia oryzoides is a species of grass known by the common name rice cutgrass or just cut-grass. It is a widespread grass native to Europe, Asia, and North America and present in many other regions, such as Australia, as an introduced species. This is a rhizomatous perennial grass growing to a maximum height between 1 and 1.5 meters. The leaves are up to about 28 centimeters long and have very rough, minutely toothed edges. The inflorescence is a loose, open array of wavy, hairlike branches bearing rows of spikelets. Each spikelet is a flat fruit with a rough, bristly lemma without an awn, and no glumes. Some of the spikelet branches develop within the sheaths of the leaves and are cleistogamous. This grass is sometimes used for erosion control and restoring wetlands.