General: Perennial, tufted grass from fibrous roots; stems erect, 30-70 cm tall.
Leaves: Sheaths smooth to rough, strongly ribbed, not fringed along the margins; blades in-rolled and 0.5-2 mm wide, or if flat, up to 4 mm wide; ligules of the upper leaves to 7 mm long, usually pointed, sometimes jagged at the tips.
Flowers: Inflorescence a loose, but narrow panicle, 10-28 cm long, the branches ascending; glumes narrow, nearly equal, papery; lower glumes 18-35 mm long, upper glumes 1-3 mm shorter; lemmas 7-13 mm long, evenly covered with 1 mm-long white hairs or smooth across the back of the lemma, awned, the awns firm and straight or zig-zagged and curved, 5-30 cm long; calluses 2-4 mm long, hairy.
Notes: Two subspecies occur in BC:
1. Terminal segment of the awn firm, straight or almost so, usually less than 5.5 cm long.................... ssp. intermedia (Scribn. & Tweedy) Barkw.
1. Terminal segment of the awn zig-zagged, curved, usually more than 5.5 cm long................... ssp. comata
Dry, open grassy slopes in the steppe and montane zones; common in SC and SE BC, infrequent northward; N to YT, E to PQ and S to NY, MI, IL, IA, TX, NM, AZ and CA.
BC Ministry of Environment:BC Species and Ecosystems Explorer,
the authoritative source for conservation information in British Columbia.
Synonyms and Alternate Names
Hesperostipa comata var. intermedia (Scribn. & Tweedy) Dorn Stipa comata var. falcata B. Boivin p.p. Stipa comata var. intermedia Scribn. & Tweedy Stipa comata var. suksdorfii H. St. John Stipa tweedyi
