Culms 2–7 dm, usually erect or nearly so, in tufts of 2–10, glabrous, or villosulous at the nodes; lowest sheaths usually papillose-pilose, the upper merely ciliate, often longer than the internodes; ligule obsolete, or a band of short hairs not over 1 mm; blades erect or strongly ascending, firm, rounded at the ciliate base, tapering from below the middle, glabrous or rarely hairy beneath, mostly 5–15 cm × (4–)6–14(–16) mm, the upper scarcely reduced; primary panicle long-exsert, relatively few-fld, 5–10 cm, the lower branches ascending; spikelets long-pedicellate, minutely hairy, ellipsoid, 1.9–2.3 mm; first glume a fourth to two-fifths as long; second glume and sterile lemma usually purplish, subequal, equaling or barely shorter than the fr; autumnal phase similar, with a few lax branches at the upper nodes bearing somewhat smaller lvs and shorter, few-fld panicles; 2n=18. Open woods, fields, and shores; Que. and Nf. to Minn., s. to N.J. and n. Ind. (P. bicknellii; P. bushii; P. calliphyllum; Dichanthelium b.) It is possible that some of the plants usually referred here are hybrids between broad-lvd and narrow-lvd spp.
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