Habit:		Densely tufted perennial forming extensive sods.
Culms:		20-50 cm. tall, tufted, erect, smooth, leafy at the base.
Blades:		3-10 cm. long, 1-2 mm. wide, flat, or when dry involute, usually glabrous.
Sheaths:	Shorter than the internodes, striate.
Ligule:		Very short with few ciliate hairs.
Inflorescence:	Spikes 1-3, spreading, often strongly curved, 2-5 cm. long, the rachis not projecting beyond the spikelet.
Spikelets:	Pectinate, numerous (60 or more), crowded, about 6 mm. long, on short minutely pubescent pedicels,
		rachilla articulated above the glumes.
Glumes:		Persistent, awn-pointed, lanceolate, keeled, minutely scabrous, first narrow, 3-3,5 mm. long,
		second 5-6 mm. long, sometimes sparingly glandular on the keel and ciliate.
Lemmas:		Fertile lemma including the awn about 6 mm. long, lanceolate, pubescent, 3-awned, the central awn
		slightly longer, usually 4-lobed, with the lateral awns from the apex of lobes, the central from
		between two teeth or lobes.
Palea:		About the length of the lemma.
Rudiment:	About 5 mm. long, densely bearded at summit of rachilla joint, cleft to the base, the lobes rounded,
		the awns slender, about equal the tip of fertile lemma; one or two additional rudiments, broad and awnless,
		sometimes developed.
Habitat:	Plains and prairies.
Use:		An important constituent of the plains and mixed prairies, a staple grazing grass throughout the year.