Elliott's bluestem

Description

Andropogon gyrans is a member of the warm-season perennial bunch grass family Poaceae and grows to heights ranging from 2.5 - 3 feet. The leaf blade is 6 - 15 inches in length, mostly smooth besides hair just above the ligule. The leaf sheath is basal, keeled, relatively narrow, overlapping, and has rounded upper sheaths. The stems are erect, with up to 6 branching near the top of the plant. The seed-head is a raceme, which is partially enclosed in a conspicuous and enlarged spathe, and turns a brown rust color when mature.Number of flowers per stem can be as few as 100. Andropogon gyrans does not have specialized underground storage units apart from its rhizomes. Diaz-Toribio and Putz (2021) recorded this species to have an non-structural carbohydrate concentration of 31.9 mg/g (ranking 86 out of 100 species studied). Within the Coastal Plain this species occurs in a wide range of open habitat conditions, including being a characteristic species of frequently burned longleaf pine and shortleaf pine-oak-hickory communities, longleaf pine and pine-turkey oak sandhills, Florida scrub communities, pine flatwoods, wet savannas, wet depressions within pinelands, seepage slopes (pitcher plant bogs), calcareous (rockland) slash pine flatwoods, dune swales, shrubby wet prairies, and open cypress swamps. Soil conditions include deep sand Entisols, sandy loam Ultisols, sandy peat Spodosols, wet Histosols (peat). This species does well in open, semi shade, and semi open light conditions and grows in large clumps together. Andropogon gyrans var. gyrans is frequent and abundant in the Peninsula and Panhandle Xeric Sandhills, North Florida Longleaf Woodlands and Subxeric Sandhills, Clayhill Longleaf Woodlands, Panhandle Silty Longleaf Woodlands, and Upper Panhandle Savannas community types as described in Carr et al. (2010). Andropogon gyrans var. stenophyllus is an indicator species for the Peninsula Savannas and Panhandle Seepage Savannas community type. It is frequent and abundant in the Lower Panhandle Savannas community type as described in Carr et al. (2010). Associated species include longleaf pine, slash pine, wiregrass, turkey oak, Aster adnatus, Sarracenia spp., Ludwigia, Bidens, Sacciolepis, Titi, sweetgum, yaupon, and others. A. gyrans is native to the southeast United States, ranging from the east coast west to Texas and Florida north up to Illinois and Pennsylvania.