Caruzo

Ichnanthus pallens, commonly known as caruzo or pale ichnanthus, is a slender, weakly perennial or short-lived perennial grass in the family Poaceae native to tropical and subtropical America from the southern United States and Mexico through Central America to most of tropical South America and the Caribbean, where it grows in shaded moist sites in forests, forest margins, stream banks, plantations and disturbed ground. It forms loose tufts or sprawling colonies, with slender, soft, often decumbent stems 30 to 100 centimetres long that root at the lower nodes. The flat, thin, lanceolate leaves are 5 to 15 centimetres long and 5 to 15 millimetres wide, soft to the touch, with a short membranous ligule and somewhat clasping sheaths. The inflorescence is an open, slender, lax panicle 8 to 25 centimetres long, with widely spreading branches bearing small two-flowered spikelets. The species is diagnostic for the genus in having a pair of small papery wings or scars at the base of the upper lemma.