Rhizomes short, covered with the persistent bases of the foliage leaves. Culms to 1.5 m. Sheaths to 30 cm; ligules to 0.5 mm; blades to 50 cm long, 2-5 mm wide. Panicles 8-40 cm long, 4-20 cm wide, open; branches to 17 cm long, ascending to spreading. Spikelets 4-5.8 mm. Glumes straight, acute; lower glumes 1.7-4.1 mm; upper glumes 3.3-5 mm; callus hairs 1/4-1/2 as long as the lemmas; lemmas 4-5.4 mm, straight, slightly to markedly pubescent, acuminate; paleas 3.8-5.3 mm, slightly to markedly pubescent; anthers 2.4-3.2 mm. 2n = unknown.

Calamovilfa brevipilis grows in moist to dry pine barrens, savannahs, bogs, swamp edges, and pocosins. It is a common grass on the New Jersey pine barrens and locally common across the coastal plain of North Carolina, but rare at present in Virginia and South Carolina. The length of the ligule hairs tends to increase from 0.3 mm or less in the north to 0.5 mm at the southern end of its range.

Culms slender, 5-15 dm, from a short stout rhizome; sheaths glabrous, to 30 cm, the basal ones keeled, firm, persistent on the rhizome; blades to 50 cm, 2-5 mm wide, articulated to the sheath; ligule under 0.5 mm; infl ±loose and open, 1-4 dm נ4-20 cm, with ascending to spreading branches; pedicels often with an apical tuft of fine hairs; first glume 1.7-4 mm, the second 3.3-5 mm; lemma 4-5.4 mm, the callus-hairs a fourth to half as long; lemma and palea hairy on the back. Swamps and bogs in the pine-barrens of N.J. and from se. Va. to S.C.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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