Leptochloa viscida

Sticky sprangletop, sonoran sprangletop, Sonoran Sprangletop

Family: Poaceae · Type: annual · Native

Sticky sprangletop is a California native annual grass found in the San Joaquin Valley (Kern and Fresno counties) and southern Desert regions (Imperial County) in wet places at elevations below 100 meters. Flowering from July to September, this plant produces reddish flowers in compact spikes 3 to 8 centimeters long with 4 to 7 florets. Growing with spreading to erect stems 10 to 60 centimeters tall, it has hollow internodes and scabrous leaf sheaths. Its leaves are 2 to 15 centimeters long and 2 to 6 millimeters wide, with a ligule 1 to 3 millimeters long that is minutely jagged. The lemmas are slightly sticky, with hairy veins and a tiny two-lobed tip topped by a slender awn 0.5 to 1 millimeter long.

Habitat: Wet places

Bloom period: Jul-Sep

Elevation: < 100 m

Bioregions: SnJV (Kern, Fresno cos.), DSon (Imperial Co.)

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