A new and distinct plant of ornamental Switch Grass named Panicum ‘Half Pint’ with upright blue-green foliage that retains its coloration into the fall. The upright, compact, and dense culms produce small-height plants with broadly airy panicles beginning greyed green, developing rosy-reddish seed heads that are retained as creamy-tan into winter. The upright foliage and inflorescences produce a tight habit that is narrower than the height of the inflorescences. The new plant is useful in the landscape as a specimen, en masse, or in a container.

The first disclosure of the claimed plant was the photograph and brief description on a website operated by Walters Gardens, Inc. on Feb. 1, 2024. The claimed plant was first offered for sale on Feb. 1, 2024, by Walters Gardens, Inc. to In the Country Garden and Gifts. Walters Gardens, Inc. obtained the plant and all information relating thereto, from the inventor. No plants of Panicum ‘Half Pint’ have been sold anywhere in the world nor has any disclosure of the new plant been made more than one year prior to the filing date of this application, and such sale or disclosure within one year was either derived directly or indirectly from the inventor and would be a 35 U.S.C. 102(b) exception.

BACKGROUND OF THE PLANT

Panicum ‘Half Pint’, hereinafter also referred to by the cultivar name ‘Half Pint’ and the “new plant” is a new and distinct cultivar of Switch Grass.

The new plant originated from a self-pollination of ‘Apache Rose’ U.S. Plant Pat. No. 29,142 at a wholesale perennial nursery in Zeeland, Michigan in the late summer of 2014. The seed was collected on Oct. 13, 2014, and was sown the following spring. The individual seedling was initially selected from among many for further observation in the summer and fall of 2016 at which time it was assigned the breeder code 14-5-11 before assigning the new plant cultivar name ‘Half Pint’.

The new plant has been successfully asexually propagated by division since late fall of 2016 at the same wholesale perennial plant nursery in Zeeland, MI, and found to produce stable and identical plants that maintain the unique characteristics of the original plant. The plant is stable and reproduces true-to-type in successive generations of asexual reproduction.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE PLANT

Panicum ‘Half Pint’ differs from its female parent, ‘Apache Rose’, in that the new plant is shorter, with more upright foliage, and has more blue-green foliage that does not change over the growing season.

‘Gunsmoke’ has a taller habit and has more arching foliage. ‘Niagara Falls’ is taller with more upright leaves and the foliage produces a broader, larger, more-defined, and arching skirt. ‘Prairie Fire’ has a slightly taller and more arching habit, the culms are looser and not as densely arranged, and the foliage develops a deep wine color in the summer.

Table 1 below includes comparisons of other Panicum cultivars known to the inventor:

TOTAL
INITIAL

U.S. PLANT
HEIGHT
FOLIAGE

CULTIVAR
Pat. No.
in CM
COLOR

application

SEASONAL
SEASON OF

FOLIAGE
CHANGE

CULTIVAR
COLOR
BEGINNING
HABIT

upright

September
upright

‘Cheyenne
concord purple
early July
very

upright

‘Prairie Fire’
deep wine
early July
upright

‘RR1’
purple-red
early July
compact

The new plant has a more upright and compact habit than all of the cultivars known to the inventor in the above Table 1.

The following traits of Panicum ‘Half Pint’, in combination, have been repeatedly observed in multiple generations of asexually propagated plants and distinguish the new plant from all other Switch Grass plants known to the inventor:

DETAILED BOTANICAL DESCRIPTION

The following descriptions and color references are based on the 2015 edition of The Royal Horticultural Society Colour Chart except where common dictionary terms are used. ‘Half Pint’ has not been observed in all possible environments. The phenotype may vary slightly with different environmental conditions, such as temperature, light, fertility, moisture, and maturity levels, but without any change in the genotype. The following observations and descriptions are of a two-year-old and four-year-old plant in a full-sun loamy-sand field and loamy-sand trial garden, respectively, of a wholesale perennial nursery in Zeeland, Michigan, USA, grown in with supplemental water and fertilizer as needed.