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Poaceae family

Warty Panicgrass Panicum verrucosum

Native
Late-season nectar — Flowers in a late-autumn window when few other plants in our catalog bloom — valuable late forage for pollinators (relative to our catalog's bloom coverage).
Also known as: Warty Panic Grass

Warty Panicgrass is an annual grass native to the lower 48 states. It blooms Aug – Oct.

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Conditions
Sources · Conditions
Cold hardiness (derived) — Hardiness
Hardiness
≥ zone 7 derived from its U.S. range
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
Lifespan
Annual
In the garden
Herb layer — Sits in the herb of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →
Rain garden / bioswale — Rated FACW on the wetland list — tolerates wet feet, so it suits the soggy zone of a rain garden or bioswale that catches and filters runoff.Open guide →
derived roles
The garden year bloom → fruit → fall colour
J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Bloom
Bloom (the flower's colour)
Bloom · Aug – Oct — 53 obs · Herbarium specimens — Park et al. 2023 (CC BY 4.0)
Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →
❧ Caterpillar hosts ~25 caterpillar species

Panicum supports ~25 caterpillar species.

Native butterfly & moth caterpillars are the base of the terrestrial food web — most songbirds rear their young almost entirely on them. As a host for native Lepidoptera this is a moderate genus.

Recorded feeding on Panicum in North America, including:

Ancyloxypha numitor · Least Skipper Atrytone arogos · Arogos Skipper Atrytone logan · skipper butterfly Chilo suppressalis · Striped Riceborer Cosmopterix clandestinella · cosmet moth Cosmopterix gemmiferella · cosmet moth
+ 8 more species →
Ctenucha virginica · Virginia Ctenucha Cycloplasis panicifoliella Elachista radiantella · grass-miner moth Elachista solitaria · grass-miner moth Enodia anthedon · brush-footed butterfly Eoreuma loftini · Mexican Rice Borer Helicoverpa zea · Corn Earworm Hesperia dacotae · Dakota Skipper
Keystone count (genus-level) from Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use records. Named species (a documented Nearctic sample, not exhaustive) from NHM HOSTS (CC0).
Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.
Frequently grows with

Across 118 U.S. vegetation-survey plots that recorded Warty Panicgrass, these catalog species turned up most often in the same plot — a real field co-occurrence signal, not a planting prescription.

Bald Cypress · 55% Blackgum · 54% Muehlenberg's Nutrush · 43% Bushy Bluestem · 42% Broomsedge Bluestem · 42% Maidencane · 39% Wax Myrtle · 36% Loblolly Pine · 36%
"%" = share of this plant's plots that also held the species. From sPlotOpen → (Sabatini et al. 2021, CC BY 4.0) — open vegetation plots: wild community composition, not garden design.
Sources for this entry (15) Open & cited
[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)
[05] Invasive / introduced status — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — native status
[06] Wetland indicator — USACE National Wetland Plant List (2022)
[08] Ecological value — Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[10] Conservation rank — NatureServe Explorer (CC BY)
[11] Cold hardiness (derived) — Derived from U.S. range × USDA PHZM zones
[12] Other common names — Wikidata (CC0)
[13] Caterpillar host count — Warren II 2026 (Dryad, CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[14] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
Spot an error or have a better photo? Every field links to its source, and the whole dataset is open.
Cite this page Open data, please attribute

PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

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