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 Seedheads and blades Max Licher @http://swbiodiversity.org, Usage Rights: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) |  Spikelets Max Licher @http://swbiodiversity.org, Usage Rights: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) | | | | |
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Origin: Introduced Season: Cool
Habitat Description: Areas with shallow water, wet meadows, grasslands, and along stream banks.
Plant Communities:Semidesert Grasslands, Riparian
Elevation: 3850 - 7290 feet
Desc:
Redtop can be distinguished from other bent grasses by its colorful purplish-red seedhead. Other bent grasses have a seedhead that is green or gray and their leaf blades are narrower.
Identification Notes: Rhizomes; seedhead stem 8 to 47 inches tall; seedhead 3 to 11 inches long, less than 1/2 the length of the seedhead stem, open at flowering otherwise contracted. One-flowered spikelets. Ligules of the upper leaves less than 1/4 inch long.
Grass Type: Perennial mat or sod-forming Rhizomes: Y Stolons: N
Large Dense Clump (> 2 feet): N Bushy (highly branched): N
Height with Seedheads: Greater than 36 inches
Seedhead Structure: Branched - fingerlike Seedhead Droops: N
Flowering Period: Mar - Apr
Number of Flowers per Spikelet: One-flowered Spikelets One-sided: N
Awns: Absent Three Awns: N Awns Bent: N
Flower and Seedhead Notes: Loose panicles, taller than wide, 3 to 11 inches long, egg-shaped to pyramidal. Spikelets are typically purplish red, somewhat flattened, lance-shaped tapering to a pointed tip, with a single floret and a short, straight, rough-textured stalk.
Blade Hairy:
N
Blade with White Margins:
N
Blade Cross section:
Flat or folded
Blade Notes:
Leaves are alternate, 2 to 8 inches long, up to 1/3 inch wide, flat, hairless and mostly smooth on both surfaces.
Sheath Hairy:
N
Tuft of Hairs at top of Sheath or Collar:
N
Ligules:
Membranous
Auricles (Ear-like lobes at collar area:
N
Forage Value:
Cattle prefer nearly all other cultivated grasses to redtop. It is commonly used for erosion control in plantings along riparian zones and wetlands.
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