Panicum grande Hitchc. & Chase

Panicum grande Hitchc. & Chase, Contr. U. S. Nat. Herb. 17;
529. 1915.
Plants perennial, gregarious, producing extensively creeping or floating leafy stolons about 5 mm. thick; culms 1.5-2 meters high or more, erect from a long decumbent base with papery sheaths and tufts of fibrous roots, 1-2 cm. thick, simple or sparingly branching, succulent, the nodes densely appressed-hirsute ; leaf-sheaths overlapping except toward the summit, glabrous, Par* 3, 1915] POAC3AP)
287
the juncture with the blade in drying presenting a darkened triangle on each side; ligule membranaceous, about 2 mm. long; blades flat, as much as 1 meter long and 6 cm. wide (the upper and lower smaller), at base narrower than the sheath, gradually widening to about the middle, narrowing rather abruptly to the acuminate apex, glabrous, striate, somewhat plicate, the margins strongly serrulate; panicles as much as 60 cm. long and 40 cm. wide, the axis and branches strongly several angled, scaberulous, the prominent pulvini minutely pubescent, the branches stiffly spreading, naked at base, the lower in whorls, the short ultimate branchlets and the pedicels appressed along the rather loose secondary branchlets, the pedicels mostly 1-2 mm. long; spikelets 2.5 mm. long, 0.9 mm. wide, nearly terete, pointed, glabrous; first glume slightly more than half the length of the spikelet; second glume and sterile lemma equal, exceeding the fruit, somewhat beaked beyond it; fruit 1.8 mm. long, 0.7 mm. wide, narrowly obovate, smooth and shining, the lemma and palea indurated but the lemma-margins flat.
Type locality: Gatun Lake, Canal Zone.
Distribution : Panama to Brazil.