General: Perennial grass from fibrous roots; stems simple in spring with terminal panicles, becoming branched in late summer with axillary panicles, more or less pimply and soft-hairy, 15-50 cm tall.
Leaves: Sheaths open; basal leaves different from the stem leaves, forming a winter rosette; blades hairy below, smooth above, hairs of margins with minutely blistery base, the upper blades larger than the basal, 5-15 mm wide; ligules 1-1.5 mm long.
Flowers: Inflorescence an open panicle, 3-8 cm long, the late summer axillary panicles often with closed, self-fertilizing florets; spikelets 2-flowered, more or less short soft-hairy, 2.7-3.2 mm long, the first florets sterile; lower glumes 1-nerved, about 1.5 mm long, the rest of the spikelet abruptly narrowed to a hardened, cuplike base 0.6-0.8 mm long, the upper glumes short soft-hairy throughout or sometimes smooth, 9- to 11-nerved, rounded at the tips, barely exceeding the fertile florets; sterile lemmas short soft-hairy throughout or sometimes smooth, 9- to 11-nerved, rounded at the tips, barely exceeding the fertile florets; fertile lemmas much-hardened and faintly-nerved; lodicules 0.6-0.7 mm long, tubular-fan-shaped.
Dry open sandy flats, gravelly knolls and rocky bluffs in the lowland, steppe and montane zones; frequent in SW and SC BC north to 51 degrees N; E to ON and S to ME, MA, PA, NC, FL, MS, LA, TX, NM, AZ and CA.
