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.