Dichanthelium lucidum (Ashe) LeBlond. Bog Witchgrass. Phen: May-Oct. Hab: Wet meadows, sphagnous swamps, bogs, wet woods, sphagnous streamhead pocosins, baygalls. Dist: MA and MI south to FL and TX.

Origin/Endemic status: Native

Taxonomy Comments: Vernal culms soon recline, producing a tangled mass. The papillose fertile lemma is diagnostic. Rarely, entire populations of D. lucidum can have eciliate ligules composed of a membrane 0.1-0.3 mm long. Even rarer are plants within these populations with retrorsely bearded nodes. Both conditions may reflect intergradation with another taxon, possibly within the dichotomum complex, or with D. cryptanthum in section Clandestina. Plants with spikelets 1.5-1.8 mm long, pubescent lower sheaths and internodes, and strigose-bullate blade surfaces of lower leaves were named Panicum lucidum var. opacum by Fernald. Plants with these characters were collected in Clarendon Co., SC, by John Nelson in 2019. These plants have incomplete ligules with few scattered short hairs, and fertile lemmas with scattered and irregular papillae at 40×. Gleason (1952) noted intermediates. More research is needed to determine the taxonomic validity of these plants.

Synonymy: = NY, Pa, Va, LeBlond (2001a); = Panicum lucidum Ashe – G, S; < Dichanthelium dichotomum (L.) Gould ssp. lucidum (Ashe) Freckmann & Lelong – FNA25; < Dichanthelium dichotomum (L.) Gould var. dichotomum – K1, K3, K4, Gould & Clark (1978); < Panicum dichotomum L. – C, GW1, NcTx, RAB; < Panicum dichotomum L. var. lucidum (Ashe) Lelong – Lelong (1984); ~ Panicum dichotomum L. var. opacum, (an illegitimate name used by Jones & Coile); > Panicum lucidum Ashe var. lucidum – F, HC; > Panicum lucidum Ashe var. opacum Fernald – F, HC

Show in key(s)

Show parent genus

Heliophily: 5