Tripsacum dactyloides

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Tripsacum dactyloides
Tripsacum dactyloides Arkansas.jpg
Detail of staminate and pistillate flowers
Status TNC G5.svg
Secure  (NatureServe) [1]
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Monocots
Clade: Commelinids
Order: Poales
Family: Poaceae
Subfamily: Panicoideae
Genus: Tripsacum
Species:
T. dactyloides
Binomial name
Tripsacum dactyloides
(L.) L. 1759
Synonyms [2]
  • Coix angulatus Miller
  • Coix dactyloidesL. 1753
  • Dactylodes angulatum Kuntze
  • Dactylodes dactyloides(L.) Kuntze
  • Ischaemum glabrumWalter
  • Tripsacum bravumJ.R.Gray
  • Tripsacum compressumE.Fourn.
  • Tripsacum floridanumPorter ex Vasey
  • Tripsacum monostachyonWilld.

Tripsacum dactyloides, commonly called eastern gamagrass, [3] or Fakahatchee grass, is a warm-season, sod-forming bunch grass. [4] It is widespread in the Western Hemisphere, native from the eastern United States to northern South America. [5] Its natural habitat is in sunny moist areas, such as along watercourses and in wet prairies. [5] In some areas, it has adapted well to disturbed conditions. [6]

Contents

Eastern gamagrass is a widely cultivated for its use as forage.

Description

Usually, gamagrass grows to a height of 2–3 feet (0.61–0.91 m), but it can be as high as 8–10 ft (2.4–3.0 m). It is one of the species in the family Poaceae, tribe Andropogoneae, and subtribe Tripsacinae, the same subtribe of the Zea mays corn species. [7]

Roots: Eastern gamagrass has several short, fibrous, thick rhizomes. [8] Eastern gamagrass can survive droughts and floods for a long time because of its rigid and thick rhizomatous roots which firmly holding the plant upright. [9] The deep and hollow roots of the plant branch out from lower nodes.

Leaves: Since the grass has short internodes, all the leaves grow out from the plant's base. Each clump's diameter can increase up to 4 ft (1.2 m). [8] The stems and leaves have a purplish color and are glabrous. The glabrous leaf-blade is around 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) long, 9–35 millimetres (0.35–1.38 in) wide and has hairs at the base. The distinct midrib leaves of gamagrass can grow up to a height of 12–24 inches (300–610 mm) and a width of 0.375–0.75 in (9.5–19.1 mm). [4]

Flowers: The flowers of eastern gamagrass, which blooms from late March to early October, consist of spikes made up of female and male spikelets. It has separate female and male flowers on the same individual making it a monoecious plant. The inflorescence of the terminal axillary bud is 10–30 centimetres (3.9–11.8 in) long. The type of inflorescence is usually a single raceme or a panicle with a combination of two to three unisexual single racemes. [10]

Fruits: The seed-producing season of the grass is from June to September. The seeds mature disproportionally and production is commonly slow. [11] The joints of the seedhead break into two as the fruit matures and each seed-bearing part contains one seed. [7] The size of the seedhead can range from 6 to 10 inches. Usually, spikelets of grass assist reproduction by holding the grain and fruit. When the mature female spikelets are destroyed they separate like pop-beads.

Distribution

Tripsacum dactyloides is widely spread throughout the United States, from Connecticut to Nebraska and south to Florida and Texas. It is also found as far south as South America, in Paraguay and Brazil. The plant has been cultivated outside of its native range in the southwestern United States and elsewhere. [7]

Ecology

Tripsacum dactyloides is a larval host for Cymaenes tripunctus , Lerema accius and Lerema accius . Its foliage also provides food for the larvae of Anisostena bicolor , Anisostena kansana , Sphenophorus maidis and Chilophaga tripsaci . Bison, elk, and other large herbivores grazed on the foliage. [12] Small mammals, birds and lizards use Tripsacum dactyloides as cover. The fruit is eaten by deer. [13]

Cultivation

The best growing conditions for eastern gamagrass are provided by wet land, such as floodplains along riverbanks. Moreover, moist, nonalkaline lowland areas will maintain the growth of gamagrass because the land can endure a longer time under flood conditions. [7] The soil that is most suitable for eastern gamagrass is moist, little drained fertile soil that has an annual precipitation of 900–1,500 mm (35–59 in) and a pH of 5.5 to 7.5.

Tripsacum dactyloides can tolerate a maximum of three weeks of flooding without dying. The deep roots, which extend to around 4.5 m (15 ft) underground, are the key structure that allows gamagrass to tolerate drought. [7]

Uses

Eastern gamagrass was widely considered a high class feedcrop among the early settlers of the United States. However, it started to disappear because of grain crops and cattle grazing. Around the late 1980s and early 1990s, people started to pay attention again to eastern gamagrass as a forage in summer, since it is productive, palatable and easily digestible by almost all cattle. For these reasons, gamagrass is ideally suitable for feed crops, including hay and pasture forage for which rotation of grazing seasons is controlled. It is used as forage because the growing season of the grass is earlier compared to other warm-season grasses and later compared to cool-season grass and legumes. [7] Eastern gamagrass requires a moderate amount of carbohydrates stored in the leaf bases for regrowth. If the plant is grazed before carbohydrate accumulates in the leaf bases, the plant will die from overgrazing. [7]

Gamagrass is also suitable as a wildlife habitat. Hollow space in the middle of dispersed bundles and the tented canopy created by the leaves growing from the rhizomes and dropping into the middle make the plant an attractive habitat for wildlife. For example, the empty space in the middle of bundles is large enough for wild animals like quails and prairie chickens to build nests. Moreover, the grass provides good cover during the winter for grassland sparrows. [9]

Gamagrass grows from mid-April to mid-September. This is a little earlier in the year compared to other native warm-season grasses like big bluestem (Andropogon gerardi) and switch grass ( Panicum virgatum ). The high relative yield of gamagrass in summer is the major reason why this grass is a good feedcrop when cool-season grasses ("tall fescue") are undeveloped. [8]

Genetics

Hybrids have been created by crossing Zea mays and the octoploid (2n = 72) form of T. dactyloides. [14]

Related Research Articles

<i>Panicum virgatum</i> Species of plant

Panicum virgatum, commonly known as switchgrass, is a perennial warm season bunchgrass native to North America, where it occurs naturally from 55°N latitude in Canada southwards into the United States and Mexico. Switchgrass is one of the dominant species of the central North American tallgrass prairie and can be found in remnant prairies, in native grass pastures, and naturalized along roadsides. It is used primarily for soil conservation, forage production, game cover, as an ornamental grass, in phytoremediation projects, fiber, electricity, heat production, for biosequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, and more recently as a biomass crop for ethanol and butanol.

<i>Andropogon gerardi</i> Species of grass

Andropogon gerardi, commonly known as big bluestem, is a species of tall grass native to much of the Great Plains and grassland regions of central and eastern North America. It is also known as tall bluestem, bluejoint, and turkeyfoot.

<i>Echinochloa crus-galli</i> Species of plant

Echinochloa crus-galli is a type of wild grass originating from tropical Asia that was formerly classified as a type of panicum grass. It is commonly known as cockspur, barnyard millet, Japanese millet, water grass, common barnyard grass, or simply "barnyard grass". This plant can grow to 60" in height and has long, flat leaves which are often purplish at the base. Most stems are upright, but some will spread out over the ground. Stems are flattened at the base. The seed heads are a distinctive feature, often purplish, with large millet-like seeds in crowded spikelets.

<i>Bouteloua gracilis</i> Species of grass

Bouteloua gracilis, the blue grama, is a long-lived, warm-season (C4) perennial grass, native to North America.

<i>Sporobolus heterolepis</i> Species of flowering plant

Sporobolus heterolepis, commonly known as prairie dropseed, is a species of prairie grass native to the tallgrass and mixed grass prairies of central North America from Texas to southern Canada. It is also found further east, to the Atlantic coast of the United States and Canada, but is much less common beyond the Great Plains and is restricted to specialized habitats. It is found in 27 states and four Canadian provinces.

<i>Bouteloua dactyloides</i> Species of flowering plant

Bouteloua dactyloides, commonly known as buffalograss or buffalo grass, is a North American prairie grass native to Canada, Mexico, and the United States. It is a shortgrass found mainly on the High Plains and is co-dominant with blue grama over most of the shortgrass prairie.

<i>Cytisus proliferus</i> Species of legume

Cytisus proliferus, tagasaste or tree lucerne, is a small spreading evergreen tree that grows 3–4 m (10–13 ft) high. It is a well known fertilizer tree. It is a member of the Fabaceae (pea) family and is indigenous to the dry volcanic slopes of the Canary Islands, but it is now grown in Australia, New Zealand and many other parts of the world as a fodder crop.

<i>Bromus ciliatus</i> Species of grass

Bromus ciliatus is a species of brome grass known by the common name fringed brome. It is native to most of North America, including most of Canada, most of the United States except for some portions of the South, and northern Mexico. It is a plant of many habitats, including temperate coniferous forest. The specific epithet ciliatus is Latin for "ciliate", referring to the delicate hairs of the leaf blades.

<i>Sporobolus michauxianus</i> Species of grass

Sporobolus michauxianus is a species of cordgrass known as prairie cordgrass, freshwater cordgrass, tall marshgrass, and sloughgrass. It is native to much of North America, including central and eastern Canada and most of the contiguous United States except for the southwestern and southeastern regions. Its distribution extends into Mexico. It is also present on other continents as an introduced species.

<i>Bouteloua hirsuta</i> Species of flowering plant

Bouteloua hirsuta, commonly known as hairy grama, is a perennial short prairie grass that is native throughout much of North America, including the Great Plains and Canadian Prairies region, as well as Mexico and Guatemala.

<i>Diatraea crambidoides</i> Species of moth

Diatraea crambidoides, the southern cornstalk borer moth, is a species of moth of the family Crambidae described by Augustus Radcliffe Grote in 1880. It is found in North America, from Alabama and northern Florida to Ohio and Maryland. Its wingspan is 15–40 mm, and adults are straw colored to dull white. The forewings are slightly darker than the hindwings. There are two generations per year.

<i>Elymus lanceolatus</i> Species of grass

Elymus lanceolatus is a species of grass known by the common names thickspike wheatgrass and streamside wheatgrass. It is native to North America, where it is widespread and abundant in much of Canada and the western and central United States. There are two subspecies, subsp. lanceolatus occurring throughout the species' range and subsp. psammophilus occurring in the Great Lakes region.

<i>Panicum repens</i> Species of plant

Panicum repens is a species of grass known by many common names, including torpedo grass, creeping panic, panic rampant, couch panicum, wainaku grass, quack grass, dog-tooth grass, and bullet grass. Its exact native range is obscure. Sources suggest that the grass is native to "Africa and/or Asia", "Europe or Australia", "Eurasia", "Australia", "Europe, Asia, and Africa", or other specific regions, including the Mediterranean, Israel, and Argentina. It is present in many places as an introduced species and often a noxious weed. It has been called "one of the world's worst weeds."

Tripsacum floridanum is a species of grass in the family Poaceae known by the common name Florida gamagrass. It is native to Cuba and the US state of Florida.

<i>Eragrostis pilosa</i> Species of plant

Eragrostis pilosa is a species of grass in the family Poaceae. It is native to Eurasia and Africa. It may or may not be native to North America. It is widely introduced, and it is a common weed in many areas.

<i>Alysicarpus vaginalis</i> Species of flowering plant in the legume family

Alysicarpus vaginalis is a species of flowering plant in the legume family, Fabaceae. It is native to parts of Africa and Asia, and it has been introduced to other continents, such as Australia and the Americas. It is cultivated as a fodder for livestock, for erosion control, and as a green manure. Common names include alyce clover, buffalo clover, buffalo-bur, one-leaf clover, and white moneywort.

<i>Hyparrhenia rufa</i> Species of plant

Hyparrhenia rufa is a species of grass known by the common names jaraguá, jaraguá grass, and giant thatching grass. It is native to Africa and it is widespread in the world as a cultivated forage and fodder for livestock and a naturalized and sometimes invasive species.

<i>Centrosema pubescens</i> Species of legume

Centrosema pubescens, common name centro or butterfly pea, is a legume in the family Fabaceae, subfamily Faboideae, and tribe Phaseolae. It is native to Central and South America and cultivated in other tropical areas as a forage for livestock.

<i>Digitaria eriantha</i> Species of grass

Digitaria eriantha, commonly known as digitgrass or Pangola-grass, is a grass grown in tropical and subtropical climates. It grows relatively well in various soils, but grows especially well in moist soils. It is tolerant to droughts, water lodging, suppresses weeds and grows relatively quickly after grazing. This grass demonstrates great potential for farmers in Africa in subtropical and tropical climates, mostly for livestock feed.

<i>Hilaria rigida</i> Species of grass

Hilaria rigida is a species of clumping perennial grass that is widespread in California deserts. It is commonly known as big galleta. It is a monocot in the Hilaria genus of the grass family (Poaceae).

References

  1. "Tripsacum dactyloides". Natureserve.org. May 5, 2023. Retrieved May 13, 2023.
  2. The Plant List, Tripsacum dactyloides (L.) L.
  3. USDA, NRCS (n.d.). "Tripsacum dactyloides". The PLANTS Database (plants.usda.gov). Greensboro, North Carolina: National Plant Data Team. Retrieved 15 December 2015.
  4. 1 2 "EASTERN GAMAGRASS" (PDF). United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Censervation Service: 1–2. 5 Feb 2002. Retrieved 20 April 2012.
  5. 1 2 Tripsacum Grass Manual on the Web. Archived from the original on April 15, 2017. Retrieved 25 January 2018.
  6. Alan Weakley (2015). "Flora of the Southern and Mid-Atlantic States".
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Eastern Gamagrass" (PDF). United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service: 1–3. May 1996.
  8. 1 2 3 Roberts, Craig; Robert Kallenbach (1996). "Eastern Gamagrass" (PDF). MU Guide: 1–4.
  9. 1 2 "Eastern Gamagrass". Houston Audubon.
  10. "Tripsacum dactyloides". Tropical Forages. Retrieved 20 April 2012.
  11. "Eastern Gamagrass". Johnston Enterprises. Retrieved 20 April 2012.
  12. "Gama Grass". www.illinoiswildflowers.info. Retrieved 11 January 2024.
  13. "Tripsacum dactyloides". www.fnps.org. Retrieved 11 January 2024.
  14. J. M. J. de Wet & J. R. Harlan (1974). "Tripsacum–maize interaction: a novel cytogenetic system" (PDF). Genetics . 78 (1): 493–502. doi:10.1093/genetics/78.1.493. PMC   1213208 . PMID   17248666.