Perennial; culms in tough clumps from short hard rhizomes, 1-4 m. high, slender or robust, glabrous to densely papillose-hispid at least below the glabrous to conspicuously bearded nodes, finally branching, the branches slender, leaning or drooping; sheaths mostly longer than the internodes, the lower ones usually papillose-hispid, the upper ones glabrous or only sparsely papillose-hispid, the mar-gins sometimes ciliate toward the summit; ligule firm, 1-3 mm. long; blades 12-32 cm. long, 8-23 mm. wide, rounded at the base, glabrous or scaberulous, sometimes sparsely pubescent or pilose with a dense line of long hairs just above the ligule, the margins scabrous; panicles nodding or drooping, composed of 10-45 racemes spreading or recurved at maturity, the lower 6-14 cm. long, the axis 10-25 cm. long, glabrous or sparsely pilose; rachis about 0.5 mm. wide, scabrous, densely hairy in the axils, sometimes naked at the base; spikelets 2-2.5 mm. long, elliptic, paired, usually loosely arranged toward the base of the racemes, denser above; glume and sterile lemma equal, scarcely covering the fruit, finely pubescent or especially the lemma nearly glabrous; fruit pale, shining, very minutely striate.
Home