Paspalum fluitans (Ell.) Kunth
Horsetail Paspalum

Habit: Aquatic perennial, rarely terrestrial, then much dwarfed. Culms: Mostly submerged, sometimes 2 m. long, with tufts of long roots at the dark sometimes hispid nodes and numerous floating branches, soft and spongy. Blades: Usually 10-20 cm. long, 12-15 mm. wide, tapering to both ends, flat, thin, scabrous, often ciliate towards the base, collar dark, usually strigose. Sheaths: Commonly overlapping on the branches, auricle prominent, erect sheaths of the floating branches inflated, papery, often purple-spotted, those of aerial branches loose, thin, smooth or scabrous above, glabrous to sparsely papillose-hispid. Ligule: Rather firm, erose, strigose, extending up the inner margin of the auricle. Inflorescence: 10-15 cm. long, of numerous, ascending, spreading or recurved rather lax racemes, 3-5 cm. long, solitary or in fascicles of 2 or 3 along a slender scabrous axis about 1.5 mm. wide, foliaceous, racemes tardily falling entire, rachis extending beyond the uppermost spikelet. Ligule: Membranous, about 1 mm. Iong, the white hairs back of it about mm. long. Spikelets: Planoconvex, whitish, nearly sessile, usually pubescent, elliptic, solitary in two rows on one side of a flattened and winged rachis, 1-flowered. Glumes: First wanting, second and sterile lemma very thin, more or less exceeding the fruit and pointed beyond it, 2-nerved, the two near the margins pubescent with soft spreading hairs or glabrous, the lemma pinkish at base. Lemmas: Fertile lemma and palea usually obtuse and chartaceous-indurated margins of the lemma inrolled, back of lemma turned towards the rachis. Fruit: 1.4-1.7 mm. long, 0.6 mm. wide, elliptic, smooth and shining. Habitat: Floating in sluggish streams or standing water or creeping in wet places. September-October. Kansas Range: Southeast (Labette and Cherokee counties) Remarks: At maturity the panicle suggests an ostrich feather.