Leptochloa fusca subsp. fascicularis

Bearded sprangletop, Bearded Sprangletop

Family: Poaceae · Type: annual · Native

Bearded sprangletop is a native annual grass found in the North Coast Ranges, Central Valley, Central Coast, Great Basin, and Desert regions in marshes, wetlands, and wet disturbed agricultural areas at elevations below 1,200 meters. Flowering from June to October, this plant produces approximately white flowers in branched clusters with spreading to ascending spikes 8 to 15 centimeters long. Growing with spreading to erect stems 30 to 100 centimeters tall, it develops distinctive leaf sheaths with ligules 5 to 7 millimeters long that become jagged with age. Its leaves have glabrous sheaths with ligules that become increasingly ragged over time. The grass produces spikelets 6 to 12 millimeters long with lanceolate glumes and lemmas that often feature a distinctive dark spot on their lower half.

Habitat: Marshes, wetlands, often wet disturbed areas, often associated with agriculture

Bloom period: Jun-Oct

Elevation: < 1200 m

Bioregions: NCoRO, GV, CCo, GB, D

California counties: Fresno, Tulare, Santa Barbara, Kern, Yolo, Merced, Butte, San Bernardino, Alameda, Marin, San Luis Obispo, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Orange, Inyo, Sonoma, Mendocino, Colusa, Contra Costa, Imperial, Kings, Madera, Solano, Stanislaus, Yuba, Monterey, Ventura, Tehama, Sutter, Glenn, Siskiyou, San Mateo, Tuolumne, Shasta, San Joaquin, Sacramento, Lassen, Lake, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz

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