Panicum rigidulum subsp. rigidulum

Redtop panicum, Redtop Panicum

Family: Poaceae · Type: perennial · Not Native

Redtop panicum is a naturalized perennial grass found in the Sierra Nevada and Great Valley bioregions in ditches and riverbanks at elevations below 1,600 meters. Flowering from July to October, this grass produces small, pale green to brown spikelets clustered along branching inflorescences. Growing in dense clumps with stems 40 to 140 centimeters tall, it forms robust, upright bunches of vegetation. Its leaves are long and narrow, folding at the base, with blades 10 to 40 centimeters long and 2 to 12 millimeters wide, typically glabrous or sparsely hairy on the upper surface. The spikelets are small, approximately 1.6 to 2 millimeters long, with a distinctive tuft of minute hairs at the tip of the upper floret.

Habitat: Ditches, riverbanks

Bloom period: Jul-Oct

Elevation: < 1600 m

Bioregions: SN, GV

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