Grass Description
Dry sandy and gravelly slopes, flats, and roadsides. Associated with desert scrub, pinyon-juniper and pine forests.
General Description
Perennial bunchgrass, 1 to 3 feet tall, usually grows in rather small clumps. Stems are erect or trailing. It is a perennial grass but it is short-lived and is sometimes an annual.
Perennial; seedhead branches loosely flowered, branchlets and spikelet stems spreading; sheaths hairy on margins and collar; spikelets less than 1/8 inch long. Seedheads are always wide open and more loosely flowered then S. cryptandrus .
Flower Characteristics
Large loosely-flowered, airy, elongate seedheads have slender branches and branchlets which spread and droop. Grayish single-seeded spikelets have unequal glumes and no awns.
Vegetative Characteristics
Leaf blades are flat or folded, becoming V-shaped toward the long-tapered tips and are less than 1/8 inch wide and up to 8 inches long. The leaf sheaths are densely hairy at the top and often have a fringe of hair along the margins.
Browsed by wildlife and cattle during summer months with fair forage value. Mesa dropseed becomes unpalatable and low in nutrition at maturity.