Triplasis purpurea

Triplasis purpurea, the purple sand-grass, is a grass native to North America. The specific epithet purpurea is Latin for "purple", referencing the purple spikelets of the grass.

Triplasis purpurea
Triplasis purpurea illustration
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Monocots
Clade: Commelinids
Order: Poales
Family: Poaceae
Genus: Triplasis
Species:
T. purpurea
Binomial name
Triplasis purpurea

Description

Triplasis purpurea up grows to 13 dm (51 in) in height. Its wiry, tufted culms are either widely spreading or ascending, with pubescent nodes. The leaf sheathes and small, rigid leaves of the grass are scabrous. The ligule is a ring of short hairs. Its terminal panicles are 3–7 cm (1.2–2.8 in) long, with rigid and divergent branches. The rose-purple spikelets of the grass are 5–8 mm (0.20–0.31 in) long with two to five flowers and have rather short pedicels. The flowering scales are oblong and twice lobed at their apex, with glabrous lower scales. The joints of the rachilla are as half as long as the flowering scales. The awn of the lemma barely exceeds its truncate lobes.[1][2]

The grass flowers from August to October.[1]

Distribution and habitat

Triplasis purpurea is endemic to North America, mostly throughout along eastern coast but also in the midwest.

The grass prefers the sandy dunes and beaches of the Atlantic coast, Gulf coast, and the Great Lakes, though it can also occur in disturbed areas inland such as roadsides.[3]

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References
  1. Merrit Lyndon Fernald (1970). R. C. Rollins (ed.). Gray's Manual of Botany (Eighth (Centennial) - Illustrated ed.). D. Van Nostrand Company. p. 130. ISBN 0-442-22250-5.
  2. Nathaniel Lord Britton, Addison Brown (1913). An Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States, Canada and the British Possessions. 1 (2 ed.). Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 235.
  3. "Triplasis purpurea". NatureServe. 2018. Retrieved 3 August 2018.
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