General: Annual grass from fibrous roots, usually branching from the base; stems decumbent-based to erect, 20-70 cm tall.
Leaves: Sheaths open, copiously more or less pimpled and soft-hairy, the hairs 2-4 mm long; basal leaves similar to the stem leaves, the blades (3) 5-12 (15) mm wide; ligules 1.5-2 mm long.
Flowers: Inflorescence a diffusely branched, spreading to drooping panicle, 10-30 cm long, often partially included in the uppermost sheath; spikelets 2-flowered, 2.5-3.5 mm long, the lower florets sterile, the upper ones always fertile; lower glumes 3-nerved, sharp-pointed, at least 1/2 as long as the spikelets, 1-3 mm long, the upper ones smooth, 7-nerved, sharp-pointed, about as long as the sterile lemmas, exceeding the fertile lemmas and paleas; sterile lemmas smooth, 9-nerved; fertile lemmas much-hardened, faintly-nerved; lodicules about 0.3 mm long, fan-shaped; anthers purple, about 1.2 mm long.
Moist to dry roadsides, railway embankments, gravelly slopes and fields in the lowland, steppe and montane zones; frequent in S BC, rare northward to 56 degrees N; E to PQ and NS and S to ME, MA, PA, NC, FL, MS, LA, 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)
