Habit: 		Tufted perennial.
Culms: 		20-70 cm. tall, erect, or decumbent at base, slender, tufted.
Blades: 	3-12 cm. long, 2-5 mm. wide, scabrous, auricled.
Sheaths: 	Shorter than the internodes, loose.
Ligule: 	Membranous, about 1 mm. long.
Inflorescence: 	Spikes nodding, 5-10 cm. long, about as wide, soft, green or purplish,
		turning pale with age, the numerous long awns soon spreading.
Spikelet: 	Alternately in 3's rarely in 2's at each node of the articulate rachis,
		sessile or short-pediceled, 1-flowered; flower perfect or in the lateral spikelets
		reduced to 1-3, spreading awns, rachilla disarticulating above the glumes and in the
		central spikelet prolonged behind the palea as a long slender bristle.
Glumes: 	Of perfect spikelets awn-like, 2-5-6 cm. long, spreading, equal, placed at the
		sides of the dorsally compressed floret which is turned with the back of the palea
		against the rachis of the spike.
Lemmas: 	Of the central spikelet 6-8 mm. long, obscurely 5-nerved, scabrous
		at the apex, lanceolate, rounded on the back, with an awn as long as
		that of the glumes, lobed, or in the lateral spikelets awnless.
		Lemma of the lateral spikelets 4-6 mm. long, short-awned.
Palea: 		Shorter than its lemma, 2-keeled, the 2 strong nerves near the margin.
Fruit: 		Grain hairy at the summit, usually adherent to the palea at maturity.
Habitat: 	Open ground, waste places, dry sandy soil and prairies. June-August.
Use: 		Forage when young, but at maturity mechanically injurious to stock
		because the sharp-pointed joints of the mature spikes pierce the nose and mouth parts.