Poa laxa ssp. banffiana

General:
Perennial, densely tufted grass from fibrous roots, not or only slightly glaucous; stems 8-35 cm tall.

Leaves:
Sheath margins open 2/3-4/5 their length; sterile shoots mainly breaking through sheath bases; blades 1-2 (3) mm wide, flat, thin; ligules 2-4 mm long, the tips sharp-pointed, often jagged, the backs smooth.

Flowers:
Inflorescence a loosely congested to open panicle, 2-8 cm long, sparse (to moderately dense), the branches 2 to 3 (5) per node, steeply ascending, stiff, slightly grooved, smooth or very slightly rough, longest ones usually 1-3.5 cm long; spikelets laterally compressed, 4-6 mm long, 2- to 5-flowered; glumes lanceolate to broadly lanceolate, thin, nearly equal to or slightly longer than their adjacent lemmas, the lower ones 3-nerved; rachilla internodes less than 1 mm long, smooth, hairless; lemmas lanceolate, 3-4.6 mm long, the tips sharp-pointed, thinly membranous, keel and marginal nerves silky-hairy to 1/2 the length, lateral nerves faint, hairless or very sparsely minutely short silky-hairy, hairless between the nerves; calluses hairless; palea keels slightly rough; flowers bisexual; anthers 0.8-1.1 mm long.

Notes:
This species has not been collected in BC since 1943 (Soreng 1991).

Source:  The Illustrated Flora of British Columbia