Plants with hard, knotty, shortly rhizomatous bases. Culms 50-170
cm, stiffly erect. Sheaths rounded, glabrous except for a few hairs on
either side of the collar; ligules about 0.5 mm, membranous, ciliate; blades
2-8 mm wide, flat or loosely infolded, glabrous, tapering to the apices. Panicles
10-30(36) cm long, 1-2 cm wide; branches to 6 cm, erect or appressed; pedicels
1-1.5 mm, glabrous. Spikelets 4-7 mm, with 5-11 florets. Glumes
4-7 mm, always conspicuously exceeding and often twice as long as the adjacent
lemmas, usually equaling or exceeding the distal florets, glabrous, 1-veined,
tapering to acuminate apices; calluses pilose; lemmas (2)3-3.5 mm,
veins pilose to well above midlength, lateral veins often excurrent; paleas
2-3 mm, bases not bowed-out; anthers 1-1.5 mm. Caryopses 1-1.5 mm.
2n = 40.
Tridens strictus grows in open woods, old fields, right of ways, and coastal
grasslands. It is endemic to the United States.
