Pleuropogon californicus

Annual semaphoregrass

Family: Poaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Annual semaphoregrass is a native perennial grass found in coastal and northern California grasslands and meadows. Flowering from April to July, this grass produces delicate green to brown spikelets spreading in loose, open panicles up to 35 centimeters long. Growing with decumbent to erect stems 15 to 95 centimeters tall, it occasionally roots weakly at its nodes, creating a flexible, adaptable growth habit. Its leaves are relatively narrow, with blades 3 to 8 millimeters wide and ligules 2 to 6 millimeters long. The grass produces distinctive spikelets 10 to 65 millimeters long, with small glumes and lemmas that give it a characteristic appearance in its native grassland habitats.

California counties: Alameda, San Luis Obispo, Sonoma, Napa, Marin, Mendocino, Solano, Sacramento, Lake, Stanislaus, San Mateo, San Francisco, Contra Costa, Santa Clara, Humboldt, Yolo, Amador, San Joaquin

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