Poverty Dropseed

Sporobolus vaginiflorus (Torr.) Wood, Class-book ed. 1861,
775. 1861.
Vilfa vaginiflora Torr.; A. Gray, N. Am. Gram. & Cyp. 3. 1834; Trin. Mem. Acad. St.-Pctersb. VI.
6 2 : 56. 1840. Cryploslachys vaginata Steud. Syn. Gram. 181. 1854. (Type from North America.) Sporobolus minor Vasey; A. Gray, Man. ed. 6. 646. 1890. (Tvpe from North Carolina.) Not S.
minor Kunth, 1830. Sporobolus filiculmis L. Dewey, Contr. U. S. Nat. Herb. 2: 519. 1894. (Based on 5. minor Vasev.)
Not 5. filiculmis Vasey. 1885. Sporobolus ovalus Beal, Grasses N. Am. 2: 300. 1896. (Based on 5. minor Vasey.) Sporobolus vaginalus Scribn. Bot. Gaz. 21: 15. 1896. (Based on Cryploslachys vaginata Steud.) ? Sporobolus vaginiflorus var. minor Scribn.; Chapm. Fl. S. U. S. ed. 3. 598. 1897. (Type from
North Carolina and Tennessee.) Sporobolus vaginiflorus var. inaequalis Fernald, Rhodora 35: 109. 1933. (Type from Concord,
New Hampshire.)
Annual, branching from the base; culms several-noded, erect to spreading, glabrous, mostly 20-40 cm. tall, sometimes as much as 75 cm. ; sheaths glabrous, more or less pilose at the throat; ligule less than 0.5 mm. long, ciliate; blades subin volute or often flat at least at base, glabrous beneath, scabrous on the upper surface and margins especially toward the tip, often ciliate near base, sometimes sparsely long-pilose on the upper surface near the base, the lower often elongate, the upper short, as much as 2 mm. wide; panicles terminal and axillary, slender, mostly not more than 3 cm. long, the terminal exserted or partly included, the axillary mostly included in the sheaths, late in the season the sheaths swollen and containing cleistogamous spikelets; glumes acute, glabrous, about equal, 3-5 mm. long; lemma as long as the glumes or exceeding them, acute or acuminate, rather sparsely pubescent, sometimes mottled with dark spots; palea acuminate, sometimes longer than the lemma.
Type locality: New Jersey.
Distribution: Sandy soil or open waste ground, Maine and Ontario to Minnesota and Nebraska, and southward to Georgia, Texas, and Arizona.

Annuals, Terrestrial, not aquatic, Stems nodes swollen or brittle, Stems erect or ascending, Stems caespitose, tufted, or clustered, Stems terete, round in cross section, or polygonal, Stem internodes hollow, Stems with inflorescence less than 1 m tall, Stems, culms, or scapes exceeding basal leaves, Leaves mostly cauline, Leaves conspicuously 2-ranked, distichous, Leaves sheathing at base, Leaf sheath mostly open, or loose, Leaf sheath smooth, glabrous, Leaf sheath hairy at summit, throat, or collar, Leaf sheath and blade differentiated, Leaf blades linear, Leaf blades very narrow or filiform, less than 2 mm wide, Leaf blades 2-10 mm wide, Leaf blades mostly flat, Leaf blade margins folded, involute, or conduplicate, Leaf blades mostly glabrous, Leaf blades more or less hairy, Ligule present, Ligule a fringe of hairs, Inflorescence terminal, Inflorescence a contracted panicle, narrowly paniculate, branches appressed or ascending, Inflorescence solitary, with 1 spike, fascicle, glomerule, head, or cluster per stem or culm, Inflorescence branches more than 10 to numerous, Flowers bisexual, Spikelets pedicellate, Spikelets laterally compressed, Inflorescence or spikelets partially hidden in leaf sheaths, subtended by spatheole, 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 present, empty bracts, Glumes 2 clearly present, Glumes equal or subequal, Glumes shorter than adjacent lemma, Glume equal to or longer than spikelet, Glumes 1 nerved, Lemmas thin, chartaceous, hyaline, cartilaginous, or membranous, Lemma similar in texture to glumes, Lemma 1 nerved, Lemma 3 nerved, Lemma body or surface hairy, Lemma apex acute or acuminate, Lemma awnless, Lemma straight, Palea present, well developed, Palea membranous, hyaline, Palea about equal to lemma, Palea 2 nerved or 2 keeled, Stamens 3, Styles 2-fid, deeply 2-branched, Stigmas 2, Fruit - caryopsis, Caryopsis ellip soid, longitudinally grooved, hilum long-linear.

Sporobolus vaginiflorus is a species of grass known by the common names poverty grass, poverty dropseed, and sheathed dropseed.