General: Perennial grass from fibrous roots, sometimes rooting at the lower nodes; stems usually hairy at the nodes, 60-100 (120) cm tall.
Leaves: Sheaths strongly soft-hairy to smooth, but often with a few long hairs at the throats; blades 5-10 (15) mm wide, flat, lax, smooth to soft-hairy on either or both surfaces; ear-shaped lobes lacking at the leaf-bases; ligules smooth to hairy, finely to coarsely jagged, (2) 3-5 mm long.
Flowers: Inflorescence a somewhat compact panicle, 10-18 (20) cm long, the branches slender, often drooping; spikelets (3-) 5- to 7- (10-) flowered, slightly if at all compressed, (15) 20-28 mm long; glumes smooth or rough on the nerves or keels, the lower ones 1-nerved but sometimes obscurely to plainly 3-nerved, 5-8 mm long, the upper ones 3-nerved (or obscurely 5-nerved), 7-10 mm long; lemmas hairy along the marginal nerves and sometimes over the lower halves but more or less smooth towards the tips, rounded on the backs, 8-13 mm long, shallowly bidentate, awned, the awns (3) 5-10 mm long; anthers 3-5 mm long, exserted.
Moist to mesic meadows, thickets, streambanks, rocky slopes and open forests in the lowland and subalpine zones; common on S Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands, infrequent in S and C BC; E to AB and S to WY, UT, ID 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)
A shade-tolerant/intolerant, submontane to montane, Western North American grass distributed equally in the Pacific and Cordilleran regions. Occurs on nitrogen-rich soils within montane, boreal, wet temperate, and cool mesothermal climates; its occurrence decreases with elevation. Scattered in coniferous forests on water-shedding sites, common in broad-leaved forests on water-receiving (alluvial, floodplain, and seepage) sites. A nitrophytic species characteristic of Moder and Mull humus forms.
