Leptochloa fusca subsp. uninervia

Mexican sprangletop, Mexican Sprangletop

Family: Poaceae · Type: annual · Native

Mexican sprangletop is a California native annual grass found in southern Sierra Nevada foothills, Great Valley, Central Western California, southwestern California, Great Basin, and desert regions in ditches, drying ponds, and disturbed wet areas at elevations generally below 1,000 meters. Flowering from March to December, this plant produces delicate pale green to light brown flower spikes in branching clusters up to 70 centimeters long. Growing with erect stems 30 to 100 centimeters tall that are occasionally few-branched, it spreads in dense, ascending clusters. Its leaf sheaths are glabrous or slightly rough, with ligules 2 to 6 millimeters long that become jagged with age. The spikelet is relatively small, measuring 5 to 7 millimeters long with 6 to 9 florets and obtuse lemma tips.

Habitat: Ditches, drying ponds, disturbed wet areas

Bloom period: Mar-Dec

Elevation: generally < 1000 m

Bioregions: s SNF, GV, CW, SW, GB, D

California counties: Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara, Tulare, Riverside, Kern, San Diego, Sierra, San Luis Obispo, Imperial, Butte, Inyo, Merced, Sonoma, Marin, Contra Costa, Monterey, Solano, Glenn, San Joaquin, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Yolo, Fresno, Stanislaus, Kings

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