General Landscape Uses:
Primarily recommended for natural landscapes and habitat restorations. Also an accent grass.
Ecological Restoration Notes: It can be used as one of many understory herbs in pine rocklands.
Availability:
Grown by enthusiasts.
Description: Medium herbaceous grass.
Dimensions: About 1-2 feet in height; up to 6 feet in flower. Spreading from underground stems (rhizomes) and forming small patches broader than tall.
Growth Rate: Moderate.
Range:
Endemic to South Florida from the Monroe County Keys north to Palm Beach, Hendry and Lee counties. In the Monroe County Keys, disjunct from Miami-Dade County to the pine rocklands of Big Pine Key.
Map of select IRC data from peninsular Florida.
Map of Postal Code Areas of IRC data from peninsular Florida.
Habitats: Pinelands and marl prairies.
Soils: Moist to seasonally wet, well-drained to moderately well-drained limestone or sandy soils, without humus.
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: Full sun.
Flower Color: Red and green inflorescence.
Flower Characteristics: Semi-showy inflorescence.
Flowering Season: Summer-fall.
Fruit: Inconspicuous caryopsis.
Horticultural Notes: Can be grown from seed and division.
Comments: Taxonomy: some authors place this into synonomy under S. scoparium.
