Natives For Your Neighborhood
Conservation of rare plants, animals, and ecosystems

General Landscape Uses: Primarily recommended for natural landscapes and habitat restorations. Also butterfly gardens.

Ecological Restoration Notes: It can be used as one of many understory herbs in pine rocklands.

Availability: Grown by enthusiasts.

Description: Small to medium herbaceous grass.

Dimensions: About 4-6 inches tall; to 12 inches or more when in flower. Spreading and usually broader than tall.

Growth Rate: Fast.

Range: Monroe County Keys and Miami-Dade County and north along the west coast to Citrus and Sumpter counties; West Indies, Mexico and Central America.

 Map of select IRC data from peninsular Florida.

 Map of Postal Code Areas of IRC data from peninsular Florida.

Habitats: Hammocks, pinelands and coastal uplands.

Soils: Moist, well-drained limestone soils, with or without humusy top layer.

Nutritional Requirements: Low; it grows in nutrient poor soils.

Salt Water Tolerance: Low; does not tolerate long-term flooding by salt or brackish water.

Salt Wind Tolerance: Low; salt wind may burn the leaves.

Drought Tolerance: High; does not require any supplemental water once established.

Light Requirements: Light shade to full sun.

Flower Color: Green.

Flower Characteristics: Inconspicuous.

Flowering Season: Summer-fall.

Fruit: Inconspicuous caryopsis.

Wildlife and Ecology: Larval host plant for southern broken-dash (Wallengrenia otho) butterflies.

Horticultural Notes: Can be grown from seed.

Comments: Can be a little weedy, but useful to fill in open spaces pine rocklands while other species are becoming established.