Grass Description
Associated with woodlands and grasslands. It also grows in fields, margins of woods, along roadsides, and in other disturbed sites, usually in sandy to clay loam soils.
General Description
Tall bunchgrass with fine spreading seedhead with purple tinge.
Tufted perennial erect or wide-spreading; short, knotty rhizomes; sheaths hairy along the margins and at collar; blades wide, flat or with margins rolling inward. Seedhead more than half the length of the plant; diffuse and purplish, lower axils hairy.
Flower Characteristics
Seedheads 10 to 18 inches long, 6 to 14 inches wide, open, basal portions sometimes included in the uppermost leaf sheaths. Spikelets 1/8 to 1/2 inch long, about 1/16 inch wide, narrow, longer than broad, reddish-purple.
Vegetative Characteristics
Blades 4 to 13 inches long, 1/8 to 1/2 inch wide, flat to inwardly rolled, both surfaces usually soft-hairy, but maybe without hairs.
Fair to poor.