Panicum maximum

Common Name(s): Guinea grass

Non-Native to Florida

Origin: Africa1

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UF-IFAS Assessment of Non-Native Plants in Florida’s Natural Areas

CATEGORY II on the Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council’s (FLEPPC) 2017 List of Invasive Plant Species

Download a page (PDF) from Identification and Biology of Nonnative Plants in Florida’s Natural Areas – Second Edition1

Here is another large non-native grass growing in Florida. Guinea grass is native to Africa and blooms year round. It is common in fields, groves, roadsides and other disturbed sites from the peninsula west to the central panhandle of Florida and Escambia county (Wunderlin, 2003). It looks very similar to another invasive plant, Johnson grass (Sorghum halepense).

Guinea grass may be found from Florida and Georgia to California and Hawaii (Kartesz, 1999). (Kartesz refers to this plant as Urochloa maxima.)

guinea grassView the herbarium specimen image from the University of Florida Herbarium Digital Imaging Projects.

 

Citations

1. Identification and Biology of Nonnative Plants in Florida’s Natural Areas – Second Edition, by K.A. Langeland, H.M. Cherry, et al. University of Florida-IFAS Publication # SP 257. 2008.