Grass Description
Dry rocky hillsides, sandy mesas and desert grasslands.
General Description
Mostly erect grass with short leaves and seedheads with 4 comb-like branches.
Annual-like. Like other Bouteloua it has short 1-sided spikes; greater than 40 spikelets per spike distinguish it from B. barbata and more than 2 spikes per seedhead from B. simplex. Spikes and glumes are persistent.
Flower Characteristics
2 to 4 spikes are 3/4 to 1-1/8 inches long. Fertile lemma hairy at base, deeply cleft, awns < 1/16 inch long. Rudiment densely hairy, cleft nearly to the base, awns longer than those of the fertile lemma. Often there is an awnless rudimentary spikelet.
Vegetative Characteristics
Blades 1/4 to 4 inches long, < 1/16 inch wide; top surfaces usually sparsely covered with fuzz with a few nipple-like based hairs basally.
Good, not as high in palatability as blue grama, but an important range grass in southern Arizona.