General: Perennial, bluish, tufted grass from fibrous roots or short rhizomes; stems 30-180 cm tall, erect or slightly decumbent at the base, the nodes exposed and often covered with dense short hairs.
Leaves: Sheaths smooth to rough, white-hairy close to the base, often purplish at the stem-base; blades 4-13 mm wide, lax, flat or slightly in-rolled, bluish-green, rough on the nerves, sometimes hairy, ear-shaped lobes at the leaf-bases up to 2.5 mm long, often purple; ligules up to 1 mm long, entire or ragged.
Flowers: Inflorescence a spike 5-21 cm long, 0.5-2 cm wide, erect to slightly nodding, rarely pendent, (1) 2 to 3 spikelets per node; spikelets 8-25 mm long, purplish, with bases often overlapping, with 2 to 4 (6) fertile florets; glumes 9-14 mm long, unawned or awned, the awns 1-5 mm long; lemmas 9-14 mm long, smooth to short-hairy at least on the nerves, the awns 1-25 mm long, straight to slightly curved; anthers 1.5-3.5 mm long.
Notes: Two subspecies occur in BC:
1. Lemmas awnless or awned, the awns less than 5 mm long................... ssp. virescens (Piper) Gould
1. Lemmas awned, the awns greater than 5 mm long.................... ssp. glaucus
Moist to dry slopes, meadows and open forests in the lowland and montane to subalpine zones; ssp. glaucus - common in S BC, less frequent north of 55 degrees N; ssp. virescens - infrequent in coastal BC, rare E of the Coast-Cascade Mountains; ssp. glaucus - N to SE AK and YT, E to ON and S to NY, IL, AR, TX, NM, AZ and CA; ssp. virescens - S to 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)
A shade-tolerant/intolerant, submontane to montane, Western North American grass distributed in the Pacific and Cordilleran regions (introduced to Eastem and Central North America). Occurs in cool temperate and cool mesothermal climates on moderately dry to fresh, nitrogen-rich soils. Sporadic on waterÂshedding sites, more frequent in broad-leaved forests on water-receiving (floodplain and stream-edge) sites. Its occurrence decreases with increasing precipitation and elevation. Characteristic of Moder and Mull humus forms.