General: Perennial, loosely tufted grass from fibrous roots or short rhizomes; stems mostly 40-80 (100) cm tall.
Leaves: Sheaths usually minutely rough but sometimes soft-hairy; blades flat, rough to sparsely soft-hairy, 2-4 (6) mm wide; ligules minutely short hairy externally, squared-off, more or less fringed with fine hairs, 2.5-4 mm long.
Flowers: Inflorescence a narrow panicle, 8-15 cm long, the branches erect or ascending; spikelets 2- to 3-flowered, usually purplish before flowering, nearly unstalked; rachilla joints about 1.5 mm long, sparsely stiff-hairy, the hairs about 1 mm long; glumes nearly equal in width and length, usually exceeding the lower or even the upper florets, the lower ones 4-6 (6.5) mm long, the upper ones 5.5-7 mm long; lemmas 4-5 mm long, blunt, unawned or with awns rarely exceeding the lemmas, the calluses very sparsely hairy, with hairs about 1 mm long; lodicules oblong, slenderly lobed to fringed with hairs, about 1 mm long; anthers up to 1.5 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)