Slender Wedgescale (Plants of the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum Grounds, Chicago, Illinois)

Slender Wedgescale

Sphenopholis intermedia

Description ⁶

This perennial grass is 1½–3' tall, forming tufts of leafy culms that are usually erect to ascending. Each slender culm is terete, unbranched, glabrous, and light green to light tan. There are typically about 3-5 alternate leaves along the length of each culm. The leaf blades are up to ¼" (6 mm.) across and 5" long; they are light green to blue-green, ascending to widely spreading, flat to slightly furrowed, glabrous to sparsely short-pubescent, and rough-textured, particularly along their margins and lower surfaces. The open leaf sheaths are fairly tight, light to medium green, longitudinally veined, and glabrous to sparsely short-pubescent. The ligules are white-membranous, while the nodes are swollen, light green, and glabrous. Each culm terminates in a slender panicle of spikelets about 3-8" long. The slender lateral branches are up to 2½" long, occurring in whorls along the rachis of the panicle. These lateral branches are erect and appressed, ascending, or somewhat spreading. The slender panicle usually nods to some extent, although sometimes it is straight. There is some variability in the length of the spikelets, glumes, and lemmas. Typically, each spikelet is about 3-4 mm. long, consisting of 2 glumes, 2-3 lemmas, and the perfect florets of the latter. The smaller (lower) glume is about 1.5-2.5 mm. long, linear in shape, and keeled; the larger (upper) glume is about 2-3 mm. long, oblanceolate-elliptic in shape, and convex to slightly keeled along the length of its outer surface. The lemmas are about 2.5-3.5 mm. long, elliptic in shape, and convex along the length of their outer surfaces (rather than keeled). Both the glumes and lemmas are hairless to slightly short-pubescent and they lack awns. The blooming period occurs during the late spring, lasting about 1-2 weeks. The florets are cross-pollinated by the wind. Shortly afterwards, the spikelets change color from light green to light tan. Disarticulation of the spikelets is below the glumes. Each mature spikelet produces 1-3 small grains that are linear-ellipsoid in shape. The root system is fibrous. Cultivation

Sources and Credits

(c) licensed media from USDA PLANTS images without owner, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://plants.usda.gov/java/largeImage?imageID=spin3_001_avd.tif
(c) anonymous, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/grasses/photos/sl_wedge1.jpg
(c) anonymous, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/grasses/photos/sl_wedge2.jpg
(c) anonymous, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/grasses/photos/sl_wedge3.jpg
(c) anonymous, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/grasses/photos/sl_wedge4.jpg
(c) John Hilty, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://eol.org/data_objects/29449382

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