Habit: 		Densely tufted perennial.
Culms: 		30-60 cm. tall, erect, rigid, simple or nearly so.
Blades: 	15-40 cm. long, 2 mm. wide or less, flat or mostly involute, stiff, smooth or
		somewhat scabrous above, the numerous blades of the sterile shoots long.
Sheaths: 	The upper shorter than the internodes, overlapping below, smooth or slightly scabrous.
Ligule: 	3-4 mm. long or more, membranous.
Inflorescence: 	Panicle diffuse, 7-15 cm. long or more, from the upper 1-3 sheaths, greenish,
		becoming pale, the many slender branches widely and stiffly spreading, the branchlets
		flexuous, dichotomous, all spreading, bearing a spikelet on a long capillary pedicel.
Spikelets: 	6-8 mm. long, 1-flowered, broad, rachilla disarticulating above the glumes.
Glumes: 	Subequal, 6-8 mm. long, 3-5-nerved, with spreading tips, ovate, acuminate,
		glabrous or puberulent, thin and papery.
Lemmas: 	Exclusive of awn about 3 mm. long, broad, indurate, convolute, with a
		short and obtuse callus at the base, ending in a terminal, early deciduous,
		mostly straight but twisted awn, about 4 mm. long, nearly black when mature, densely long-pilose, with white hairs 3 mm. long.
Palea: 		Enclosed by the inrolled edges of the lemma.
Fruit: 		Grain enclosed within the lemma and palea.
Habitat: 	Sandy or rocky deserts and plains.  May.
Use: 		Forage grass, but scarce.
Synonyms:	Achnatherum hymenoides (Roemer & J.A. Schultes) Barkworth