Mnesithea cylindrica, synonyms including Coelorachis cylindrica and Rottboellia campestris, is a species of flowering plant in the grass family Poaceae. It is known by the common names cylinder jointtail grass,[1] Carolina jointgrass,[2] and pitted jointgrass.[3] It is native to the southeastern United States.[2]
This grass is a rhizomatous perennial with cylindrical stems growing up to 1.2 meters in height. They are clothed in the sheaths of the leaves. The inflorescence is cylindrical.[4] The spikelets are pitted.[2]
In 1803, André Michaux described the species as Tripsacum cylindricum. It was transferred to the genus Coelorachis in 1909 as C. cylindrica, and to the genus Mnesithea in 1986 as Mn. cylindrica. It is also treated as synonymous with Rottboellia campestris, first described in 1835 by Thomas Nuttall.
The relationship between the genera Coelorachis, Mnesithea and Rottboellia varied . A 2015 classification of Poaceae treated Coelorachis as a synonym of Mnesithea, a view supported by a 2020 molecular phylogenetic study. This species is then accepted as Mnesithea cylindrica. Alternatively, Plants of the World Online, following Veldkamp et al. in 2013, treated the genus Coelorachis as a synonym of Rottboellia, with this species accepted as Rottboellia campestris.
This grass grows on tallgrass prairies, forest edges, and sometimes roadsides.[2]