Culms few, 4-6 dm, usually purplish, coarsely pubescent with spreading or ascending hairs, the nodes densely bearded; sheaths densely papillose-pilose with ascending hairs; ligule a band of hairs 2.5-4 mm; blades spreading or ascending, the larger ones 8-12 cm נ10-18 mm, soft-hairy beneath, glabrous above or sparsely ciliate toward the abruptly rounded base; primary panicle ovoid, 6-10 cm, included at base or exsert as much as 5 cm; spikelets thinly to densely villosulous, ellipsoid-obovoid, 3.5-4.2 mm; first glume up to half as long, triangular-ovate, acute; second glume and sterile lemma subequal, shorter than the fr; autumnal phase sparsely branched from the middle and upper nodes, the blades two-thirds as wide as those of the primary stems, the panicles much reduced, surpassed by the upper blades; 2n=18. Dry woods; Md. and Del. to Fla. and Tex., n. to s. Mo. (Dichanthelium r.)
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.
