PLANT PROFILE

Calamovilfa brevipilus
pine barrens reedgrass



Calamovilfa brevipilus

Calamovilfa brevipilus
Calamovilfa brevipilus
Photo courtesy Renee Brecht
Britton & Brown
Botanical name: Calamovilfa brevipilus (Torr.) Scribn.  
Common name: pine barrens reedgrass
Group: monocot
Family: Poaceae
Growth type: graminoid
Duration: perennial
Origin: native
Plant height: culms 6-12 dm high
Foliage: basal sheets keeled; blades long, linear, nearly flat or involute
Flower: spikelets 1 flowered, awnless; panicle purplish
Flowering time: blooms/fruits early July-late September
Habitat: sandy, shaded bogs, swamps, stream banks, common in cranberry bogs
Range in New Jersey: throughout the pine barrens
Heritage ranking, if any: LP
Distribution: Calamovilfa brevipilus
Misc. Note the hard "knuckle" in the top left photograph that is characteristic of this species.

Witmer Stone, in 1910, describes this as one of the "characteristic grasses of the Pine Barrens. In general appearance it strikingly recalls Tridens flavus" (228).

Calamos,
Greek, a reed; and Vilfa, a name applied by Adanson to a genus of grasses; brevipilis, with short hairs (on the calyx)