General:
Annual grass from fibrous roots, tending to root at the nodes; stems hollow, erect, spreading, smooth or rarely slightly soft-hairy near the nodes, 10-60 cm tall.

Leaves:
Sheaths and collars smooth or nearly so; blades 2-4 (6) mm wide, flat, smooth to slightly rough short-hairy, sometimes with a few more or less minutely blistery hairs near the base, 2-4 mm long, the margins turned upward at the base and fused with the ligules; ligules 1-2 mm long, membranous, blunt, the margins nearly entire.

Flowers:
Inflorescence of (2) 3 to 6, fingerlike, linear racemes 3-7 (10) cm long, the spikelets mostly paired and in 2 rows on 1 side of flattened and 3-angled rachises; spikelets 2-flowered, but the lower flowers sterile, 1 spikelet short-stalked, the other nearly unstalked; lower glumes translucent, more or less semi-circular, barely 0.3 mm long, upper glumes and sterile lemmas about equalling the fertile lemmas, 2-2.5 mm long, slightly hairy; lemmas dark brownish or dark purplish.

Source:  The Illustrated Flora of British Columbia

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.

Illustration Source:  The Illustrated Flora of British Columbia

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Digitaria ischaemum var. mississippiensis (Gattinger) Fern.
Panicum ischaemum Schreb.
Syntherisma ischaemum (Schreb.) Nash