Schismus barbatus (L.) Thell.   Poaceae (Grass Family)   Old World   Mediterranean Schismus

                                          March Photo

Plant Characteristics:  Low tufted annual; erect or prostrate, culms slender, 0.5-3 dm. long; blades mostly less than 10 cm. long, 2 mm. wide; panicle narrow to oval, 1-5 cm. long, mostly dense, pale or purplish; spikelets ca. 5-fld., disarticulating above the glumes; glumes 4-5 mm. long, 5-7 nerved, shorter than spikelets, acute; lemmas ca. 2 mm. long, 9-nerved, the margins appressed-pilose on lower part, teeth minute, rounded and emarginate at tip; palea rounded, as long as lemma; grain obovoid, golden, translucent, dropping from the floret.

Habitat:  Rather common in widely scattered waste places, desert and cismontane.  March-April.

Name:  Greek, schismos, splitting, because of the 2-toothed lemmas.  (Munz, Flora So. Calif. 997).  Latin, barbatus, bearded.  (Jaeger 34).  The species name may be due to the split tip of the lemma being minutely barbed.  (John Johnson).

General:  Moderately common in the study area.   Photographed on the bench above and northerly of 23rd St.  (my comments).      This genus has usually been placed in the tribe Festuceae, but its characters place it more naturally in the tribe Aveneae. (Hitchcock 280).      About 5 species of the Old World.  (Munz, Flora So. Calif. 997).

Text Ref:  Hickman, Ed. 1293; Munz, Flora So. Calif. 997; Pohl 113;  Robbins et al. 104.

Photo Ref:  March 1 87 # 3,4; May-June 91 #10.

Identity: by John Johnson.

Computer Ref:  Plant Data 338.

Have plant specimen.

Last edit 4/23/03.

                                              March Photo