Louisiana Cupgrass

Description

A glabrous, branching perennial, ascending from a decumbent base, commonly 1 m or more tall, with flat blades 10-15 mm wide and several to many narrowly ascending racemes (Hitchcock, 1927). Spikelets silvery, 3-4 mm long. Grain oblong, free within the hardened glume and palea (Cooke, 1958). It differs from Para grass in many ways: carib grass blooms throughout the year in the southern United States, whereas Para grass blooms from September to January; secondary racemes of Para are abundant, those of carib are sparse and the spikelets nearly sessile; carib grass has darker green, more glabrous, shorter and narrower leaves than those of Para; the flower stalks of carib grass are 15-30 cm shorter than those of Para, with stolons approximately 1 m long; carib grass is densely covered with hairs on the nodes and sparsely on the leaf-sheaths and on the nodes; carib grass is more palatable than Para grass (Judd, 1979).