General: Perennial tufted grass from fibrous roots; stems 40-175 cm tall.
Leaves: Sheaths open, smooth to densely hairy, the margins sometimes with a fringe of hairs; blades (0.5) 1.2-5 mm wide; lower ligules 0.2-0.7 mm long, thin and flexible, blunt to rounded, usually without hairs along the margins; upper ligules up to 1.5 mm long, pointed.
Flowers: Inflorescence a narrow panicle, 9-36 cm long, the branches straight, appressed to ascending, the spikelets appressed to the branches; florets not flattened; glumes 6-12.5 mm long, smooth; lemmas 6-7.5 mm long, smooth above, short-hairy below, the hairs 0.2-0.5 mm long, the tips minutely lobed, membranous, 0.1-0.4 mm long, awned, the awns 19-31 mm long, the first segments rough or short-hairy, persistent; paleas 2-4 mm long, 1/3-1/2 as long as the lemmas, the calluses 0.2-1 mm long, blunt, the smooth areas barely extending beyond the base of the callus hairs.
Mesic to dry rocky slopes and open forests from the lowland to subalpine zones; frequent in NE, WC, SC and SE BC; N to YT, E to SK and S to TX, NM, AZ and CA.
The table below shows the species-specific information calculated from original data (BEC database) provided by the BC Ministry of Forests and Range. (Updated August, 2013)