PANICUM IMPLICATUM
19. Panicum implicatum Scribn. WOOLLY PANIC-GRASS.
A lowgrowing, tufted, perennial panic-grass with soft-hairy blades and sheaths commonly growing in sandy, dry and sterile pastures and meadows or rarely in moister soils.
Leaves rolled in the bud-shoot. Sheath not compressed, not keeled, densely papillose-pilose with erect hairs 1 to 2 mm. long, split to base, loose; margins not as broadly hyaline as in P. capillare. Auricles absent. Collar broad, distinct, pubescent, yellowish or light green, Ligule a fringe of long (3 to 5 mm.) and short (0.5 to 1 mm.) hairs. Blade 3 to 7 mm. wide, 3 to 5 cm. long, flat, cordate at base and tapering to the pointed tip, long, firm, erect or ascending, pilose on the upper surface with erect, whitish hairs 2 to 4 mm. long, densely appressed-pubescent on the lower surface, green, not ridged, not keeled; midrib not conspicuous; margins often involute towards the apex, scabrous. The basal leaves forming the winter rosette are 4 to 5 mm. wide, 1 to 2 cm. long, lanceolate-ovate, acuminate, coriaceous, green in the autumn, becoming brown and persisting in the following summer, glabrous on the surfaces but long-ciliate on the margins, finely ridged.
This grass is distinguished from P. capillare by its longer ligule and long-hairy upper surface of blade, and by its smaller but coarser foliage. Other species of Panicum (P. tennesseense Ashe, P. boreale Nash and P. huachucae Ashe) of similar growth habits are often found in pastures and meadows. The first two may be distinguished from P. implicatum by their relatively glabrous blades and the latter by its short appressed pubescence.
