Montana Field Guide

Tufted perennials 30-80 cm tall. Leaf sheaths glabrous to hairy; ligules 1-3 mm long; blades involute-filform or flat and then 1-2 mm wide, glabrous or scaberulous to puberulent. Panicle 5-12 cm long, narrow, branches mostly erect. Glumes 7-11 mm long, equal to or the lower slightly shorter than the lemma, apex sharp (sometimes hair-like), more or less obscurely 3- to 5-nerved, more or less membranous, occasionally purple-tinged; lemma 5.5-7 mm long, more or less hairy with appressed to spreading hairs to ca. 1 mm long (hairs fewer and shorter at apex), pale or brown at maturity and leathery or hardened, the free apical margin of the lemma thickened and forming a firm, unilateral hump at the tip of the mature fruit, awn 10-30(-35) mm long, mostly twice geniculate, the lower 2/3 twisted and puberulent; palea nearly as long as lemma, abruptly acute at the apex, glabrous or inconspicuously hairy (adapted from: Welsh et al., 1993, A Utah Flora, 2nd ed.).

Grass and sagebrush communities and open woodlands (Welsh et al., 1993, A Utah Flora, 2nd ed.).