Piptatherum millaceum (L.) Cosson   =Oryzopsis miliacea   Poaceae (Grass Family)   Eurasia   Smilo Grass   Millet Mountain-Rice                                                     San Diego Grass

                                May Photo

Plant Characteristics:  Cespitose perennial, culms erect from a decumbent base, 6-15 dm. long; ligule ca. 2 mm. long; blades flat, 5-10 mm. wide; panicle 1.5-3 dm. long, loose, the branches spreading with numerous short-pediceled spikelets beyond the middle; glumes acuminate, 3 mm. long; lemmas indurate, smooth, rarely pubescent, 2 mm. long, with a straight awn ca. 4 mm. long; spikelets disarticulating above the glumes; palea enclosed by the edges of the lemma.

Habitat:  In widely separated waste places at low elevs., San Diego Co. n.  April-Sept.

Name:  Greek, oruza, rice, and opsis, appearance, alluding to the fancied appearance to rice.  (Hitchcock 437).  Miliaceus, pertaining to millet.  (Bailey 18).  Latin, milium, belonging to millet.  (Jaeger 155).  Piptatherum, Greek for falling awn.  (Hickman, Ed. 1282).

General:  Uncommon in the study area with several clumps growing near where Mesa Dr., if it were extended toward the Upper Bay, would intersect a clump of low elev. Willows.  Several of the plants in this area were introduced by hydromulching when the horse and bike path was built in 1987.  There is no way to know if this species was also introduced at that time.  Found again in late June 1995 at the beginning of the path from 23rd St. to Mariners Dr. (my comments).        Sometimes cultivated for forage.  (Robbins et al.)  89.      Nearly all the species are highly palatable to stock, but are not usually in sufficient abundance to be of importance, except Oryzopsis hymenoides, Indian rice-grass, which is common in the arid and semiarid regions of the West and furnishes much feed.  The seed has been used for food by the Indians.  O. miliacea is cultivated for forage in California.  (Hitchcock 437).      Oryza sativa is the cultivated rice.  (Pohl 45).        About 20 species from the North Temperate Zone.  (Munz, Flora So. Calif. 985).

Text Ref:  Abrams Vol. I 135; Hickman, Ed. 1282; Hitchcock 437; Munz, Flora So. Calif. 986; Robbins et al. 89.

Photo Ref:  May-June 91  # 20,21; April-May 94 # 18A,20A.

Identity: by R. De Ruff, confirmed by John Johnson.

First Found:  May 1991.

Computer Ref:  Plant Data 423.

Have plant specimen.

Last edit 11/26/04.  

                April Photo                                            April Photo