Grass Description
Found on dry flats, in canyons and on rocky slopes.
General Description
This is a showy native bunchgrass that is 2 to 3 feet tall with fingers of white, feathery seed heads held above bluish green stems.
Leafy tufted perennial, sometimes stoloniferous; several narrow ascending spikes crowded on a short stem; spikelets subsessile attached on oneside of seedhead, two-flowered, 3 awned, lateral awns shorter, upper flowers reduced; ligule of long hairs.
Flower Characteristics
Erect seedhead is narrow and dense with 6 to 20 branches in closely spaced whorls of long finger-like spikes. Spikelets have a single fertile floret and one or occasionally two sterile florets. Spikelets have 3 awns.
Vegetative Characteristics
Flat blades are up to 7-3/4 inches long and less than 1/2 inch wide. They are covered with a waxy coating and are coarsely hairy on the upper surface near the ligule.
This grass has excellent forage value to livestock and wildlife and provides good nesting cover to ground nesting birds.