Carolina Foxtail (Alopecurus carolinianus)
- Family: Grass (Poaceae)
- Flowering: April-August
- Field Marks: This small grass is distinguished by its soft, erect, unbranched spikes and its annual habit.
- Habitat: Fallow fields, roadside ditches, around ponds, wet meadows, in sloughs.
- Habit: Annual herb with fibrous roots.
- Stems: Spreading or erect, sometimes branched, smooth or nearly so, up to 1 foot tall.
- Leaves: Narrow but rather short, up to 3 inches long, up to 1/10 inch broad, rough to the touch.
- Flowers: Borne in 1-flowered spikelets, with many spikelets crowded into a rather soft spike at the tip of the stem, the spikes up to 3 inches long, spikelets about 1/12 inch long, the scales rounded or somewhat pointed at the tip, smooth, with a slender awn arising near the base of the scale and protruding out of the spike.
- Sepals: 0.
- Petals: 0.
- Stamens: 3.
- Pistils: Ovary superior; styles 2.
- Grains: Very tiny, elongated, smooth.
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