General: Perennial, tufted grass from fibrous roots; stems (20) 40-80 (100) cm tall.
Leaves: Sheaths open, smooth to finely more or less appressed-hairy or spreading hairy; blades smooth to finely more or less appressed-hairy or spreading hairy, 2-6 (9) mm wide; ear-shaped lobes at the leaf-bases lacking; ligules more or less fringed with fine hairs, barely 0.5 mm long.
Flowers: Inflorescence an erect spike, 5-10 cm long, longer than wide; central spikelets unstalked, the lateral ones short-stalked, the stalks curved, stiff-hairy, about 1 mm long; glumes all slender, awnlike, 7-12 (20) mm long; central florets usually with awns exceeding the glumes, the lateral florets mostly sterile, often awnlike, but sometimes with all male flowers; lemma awns 5-10 (20) mm long; anthers 1-1.5 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.
Tidal marshes and moist to mesic saline meadows, sandy beaches and rocky bluffs in the lowland zone and mesic meadows and forest openings in the montane zone; common in coastal BC, infrequent elsewhere in BC north to 55 degrees N; N to AK and YT, E to SK and disjunctly E to NF and S to ME, NH, PA, IN, TX, NM, AZ and CA.
