General: Perennial, densely tufted grass from fibrous roots, sometimes from short rhizomes less than 5 cm long; stems 4-30 cm tall.
Leaves: Sheaths smooth; blades 3-7 cm long, less than 2 mm wide, flat, becoming folded; ligules 1-2.5 mm long.
Flowers: Inflorescence narrowly cylindrical, more or less constricted, usually dense, 2-8 cm long, the branches ascending to erect or appressed, the lower ones 0.5-1.5 cm long, the spikelets numerous, few or none near the branch base; glumes 2-2.5 mm long, rough short-hairy on the keels, pointed; lemmas 1.5-2 mm long, awnless, the callus hairs sparse to abundant, to 0.2 mm long; paleas absent; anthers 0.5-0.7 mm long.
If more than one illustration is
available for a species (e.g., separate illustrations were provided for two
subspecies) then links to the separate images will be provided below.
Note that individual subspecies or varietal illustrations are not always available.
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)
Mesic to moist meadows, moraines and rocky slopes in the subalpine to alpine zones; frequent in BC in and E of the Coast-Cascade Mountains; E to AB and S to NM, UT, NV and CA.