Dichanthelium laxiflorum

Dichanthelium laxiflorum, the open-flower rosette grass or soft-tufted panic grass, is a small, loosely tufted perennial grass in the Poaceae growing 20–60 cm tall. In autumn it develops a basal rosette of short, broad, soft, light green leaves that overwinters and gives rise to spring culms; cauline leaves are flat, lax, 5–12 cm long and 4–10 mm wide, with sparsely hairy sheaths and a fringed ligule. Culms are slender, geniculate at the base and finely pubescent. Two distinct inflorescences are produced through the season: an early spring open terminal panicle 5–10 cm long with widely spreading branches bearing chasmogamous spikelets, and later, smaller axillary panicles of cleistogamous spikelets hidden among the leaves. Spikelets are obovoid, 1.5–2.2 mm long, sparsely pubescent, with the upper lemma indurate and enclosing the grain. It is widespread in moist, shaded woodlands of the southeastern United States, from Texas and Florida north to Pennsylvania and the southern Midwest.