after seeing a lot of what I thought was phalaris grass around, I came across another plant species that looks extremely similar to the pics of phalaris on the net. JOHNSON GRASS.
after one quick look I was almost sure what im seeing around me is Johnson grass rather than phalaris.
I read somewhere that Johnson grass contains cyanide.
so...Can anyone provide me with a way to differentiate between Johnson grass & phalaris grass in the wild?
also dactylis glomerata is another one that's similar looking &I cant seem to differentiate.

check the ligule and look for a membrane to confirm if its Phalaris . some searches on google for sorghum halepense ligule , throw out photos like photo 1 below . and the ligule is hairy not membranous like Phalaris .

this source below though, says it has a membranous ligule.

http://www.ppws.vt.edu/scott/weed_id/sorha.htm


edit :



if this information is correct, they can be distinguished by the length of the membrane. Phalaris depending on maturity, should have a longer membrane.

I can say for sure at least the yugo red strain of phalaris arundinacea has flowers that look like this.



I see a lot of photos like this:



I personally have always gone for grass with flowers that looks like the top photo when I've been playing around with wild strains, there seem to be a lot of lookalikes for the bottom and I wouldn't even know where to begin trying to distinguish them.

i agree, they are harder to distinguish, but with little research and much observing, some obvious differences can be found. they are all grasses, so their physical characteristics are very similar, but the differences are in the small details, something like identifying acacias.

you say you wouldnt know where to begin...well the ligule membrane is the first place where you want to check. than roots, rhizomes..

edit : you say you are sure about the yugo red. do you have a photo or something to confirm this ? i would like to see a yugo red very much and confirm my doubts, as i am coming from these parts of the globe.

yugo red pic from a supplier:

I didn't snap a photo last year when it flowered but mine did flower and I can 100% confirm that it does have that type of head.

What im seeing is alot of smaller grass with the more spread out flower heads of johnson grass but also theres larger clumps with more close together heads like yugo red.
I noticed the more spread ones stay real small while the ones closer together get much bigger.
The ones i collected were the taller grass.

thanks for the photo Parshvik, the flowers do have some similarity with the flowers on the photo dreamer posted above. but the flowers are the only thing visible from this photo. interesting by the way, this photo is the only photo on the internet that represents Phalaris yugo red

edit :

@dreamer

thanks on the comment. everyone's effort counts.

I'll go ahead and let some of my clones flower out this year and see if I can get some good pics in the fall to help with ID.

I can take photos of them now if that would be helpful but I don't know how useful they will be without the flowers?