Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Cespitose perennials.

Stems: Rhizomes short, forming a hardened culm base, culms erect to slightly decumbent, 3-10 dm tall, slightly laterally compressed, glabrous to slightly retrorsely scabrous, solid, nodes numerous, slightly swollen, glabrous, internodes relatively short, 2.5-6 c

Roots: Roots fibrous.

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades 10-20 cm long, up to 6 mm wide. Upper surfaces scabrous; lower surfaces glabrous. Veins parallel. Sheaths striate, keeled, retrorsely scabrous toward base, glabrous toward apex, closed to the mouth or splitting with age; ligule membranous, short, dentate, less than I mm long, completely encircling the culm, with a hard tooth continuous with the ligule Stipules absent.

Flowers: Panicles ovoid, 3-5(-15) cm long, nodes few, branches whorled, slender, spreading to widely reflexed, the lower branches up to l0 cm long; spikelets arising on the distal 1/3 of the branches, 8-13-flowered, 10-15 mm long, long-pedicellate, compressed, usually densely scabrous, rachilla disarticulating between the florets, elongate, florets up to 0.5 mm apart; glumes narrow, linear to lanceolate,2.S-4 mm long, 3-nerved, the nerves scabrous, apex acuminate. Lemmas 4-5 mm long, 5-nerved, with a sparse tuft of cobwebby hairs at base especially on the lower florets, keel scabrous, lower part of lateral nerves scabrous, the intermediate nerves faint, margins hyaline; palea nearly as long as lemma, 2-nerved, the 2 keels scabrous-ciliate, apex acute, bifid.

Fruit: Caryopsis golden brown to reddish brown; obovoid; ca. 0.5 mm long.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Rare in wet and diverse mesic forest; especially on shaded slopes; wet ridges; and ledges.

Elevation Range: 1,060–1,220 m.