General: Perennial grass from fibrous roots and conspicuous rhizomes; stems unbranched, 60-100 cm tall, with 2 to 3 nodes.
Leaves: Sheaths smooth to occasionally hairy above, the sheath summits usually with conspicuous tufted hairs; ligules 3-5 mm long, with jagged margins at the tips; leaf blades flat, rough or occasionally just hairy above, rough or smooth below, 8-40 cm long and 2-5 mm wide.
Flowers: Inflorescence a congested to somewhat open panicle, pale or less often purplish, 6-15 (25) cm long, with the longer branches 2-4 cm long; spikelets 1-flowered; glumes long-pointed, 4-5 mm long, smooth to somewhat rough short-hairy, especially on the keels; lemmas 3-4 mm long, jagged and 4-toothed at the tips, with stout, strongly twisted and abruptly bent awns 3.5-4.5 mm long, attached near the base, the callus hairs of varying length, up to 1 mm long; rachillas about 1 mm long, with hairs to 2 mm.
Mesic to dry meadows, rocky slopes and open forests in the steppe to subalpine zones; common in S BC east of the Coast-Cascade Mountains; E to AB and S to CO, UT, NV 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 montane. Asian and Western North American grass distributed in the Pacific (only in south), Cordilleran, and Central regions. Occurs in continental boreal and cool temperate climates on very dry to moderately dry, nitrogen-medium soils; its occurrence decreases with elevation and precipitation. Occasional in lodgepole pine and Douglas-fir forests on water-shedding sites in the southern coast-interior ecotone. Commonly associated with Spiraea betulifolia. Characteristic of continental forests.
