Chloris truncata

Black windmill grass, Black Windmill Grass

Family: Poaceae · Type: perennial · Not Native

Black windmill grass is a naturalized perennial found in the Great Valley, Peninsular Ranges, and Mojave Desert regions in disturbed areas and cultivation fields at elevations below 500 meters. Flowering from April to November, this grass produces dark brown to black spikelets in distinctive digitate inflorescences with 5 to 13 nearly erect branches. Growing 30 to 50 centimeters tall with spreading stolons, it forms clumps of slender, glabrous stems. Its leaf blades are narrow, 2 to 3 millimeters wide and 5 to 20 centimeters long, with short membranous ligules. The spikelets feature lower and upper florets with lemma awns ranging from 3 to 12 millimeters long, with the lower awn typically longer than the upper.

Habitat: Disturbed areas; weed of cultivation fields

Bloom period: Apr-Nov

Elevation: < 500 m

Bioregions: GV, PR, DMoj

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.