Grass Description
Found on dry rocky slopes, canyon ledges, and along cliffs. When protected from grazing animals it grows in oak-pine and thorn-scrub forests and oak-grama grasslands.
General Description
Perennial bunchgrass with a thick, hard, rhizomatous base. Stems are fibrous or woody and often persist for more than one season.
Perennial, woody at the base, freely branching at the middle and upper nodes; rhizomes prominent and scaly; blades rolled inward, less than 1/16 inches long; seedhead stems up to 9 feet tall; seedhead narrow and condensed; spikelets on short stems.
Flower Characteristics
Seedhead is often shorter than the leaves; up to 1 inch long, narrow and somewhat bent. Spikelets are 1/8 inch long. Lemma is narrow, hairy at the base and margins, and pale with green nerves.
Vegetative Characteristics
Branch leaves are less than 1/16 inch wide and 1/4 inch or less long; smooth on the bottom and covered with fine short stiff hairs on top.
Poor.