Slender, tufted perennial 3-9 dm; lvs mostly basal or below the middle of the stem, usually erect, the blade flat or more often involute, 1-2(-3) mm wide; ligule short, mostly 1-2.5 mm; infl ±flushed with reddish, ovoid or pyramidal, very diffuse, 1-3+ dm, sometimes half as long as the whole plant, the scabrous filiform branches finally divaricate, mostly forking well above the middle; spikelets 1.2-3.2 mm; glumes scabrous on the midvein; lemma awnless or with a short straight awn; callus short-bearded; palea obsolete or to 0.3 mm; anthers 0.3-0.6 mm; 2n=28, 42. Abundant, widely distributed in many habitats, and highly variable; Lab. to Alas., s. to Fla. and Mex. Two vars.

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

©The New York Botanical Garden. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Blooming early, March to July, occasionally persisting until autumn; spikelets short-pediceled, therefore aggregated into small terminal clusters, the pedicels 0.3-2 mm, avg under 1 mm; glumes 1.2-2.4 (avg 1.5) mm; Mass. to Fla. along the coastal plain, n. in the interior to Io. and Ind.

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

©The New York Botanical Garden. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

From Flora of Indiana (1940) by Charles C. Deam

This species is infrequent to common in all parts of the state. It prefers a slightly acid soil, hence it is infrequent to absent in the neutral soils of the central counties. In the southern counties it occurs in hard, white clay soil and is usually common in fallow fields, on washed slopes, along clayey roadsides, and in moist, sandy and mucky places in our northern counties.

......

Indiana Coefficient of Conservatism: C = 2

Wetland Indicator Status: FAC

Diagnostic Traits: Tufted perennial; leaves to 2 mm wide; panicles reddish, diffuse, open, the branches only forking toward the tips; spikelets 1-flowered, to 3.2 mm long, on short pedicels to 2 mm; glumes persisting after falling of floret; lemmas awnless, to 1.2 mm; palea absent of short.