Habit: 		Low tufted dioecious perennial, with extensively creeping scaly rhizomes.
Culms: 		10-40 cm. tall, erect or decumbent at the base, with numerous leaves.
Blades: 	Stiffly ascending, 5-15 cm. long, 2-4 mm. wide, more or less involute,
		usually crowded, conspicuously 2-ranked (distichous).
Sheaths: 	Overlapping, glabrous except a few long hairs at the throat at each end of the ligule.
Ligule: 	Membranous, about 0.5 mm. long.
Inflorescence: 	Panicle of the pistillate plant 3-6 cm. long, spikelike, of the staminate
		plant looser, 3-10 cm. long.
Spikelets: 	Staminate spikelets 1-2.5 cm. long, many-flowered, very flat, straw-colored
		rachilla continuous.  Pistillate spikelets similar but less flattened, 8-15 mm. long,
		rachilla disarticulating above the glumes and between the florets.
Glumes:  	Narrow, acute, keeled, 3-7-nerved, the lateral nerves sometimes faint, lanceolate,
		about 5 mm. long; the second a little broader than the fist scarious-margined.
Lemmas: 	Closely imbricate, firm; pistillate lemma nearly coriaceous, broad,
		faintly many nerved, 5-6 mm. long, acute, straw-colored with greenish nerves;
		staminate lemma narrower, 6-7 mm. long.
Palea: 		As long as the lemma or less, the margins bowed out near the base,
		the pistillate coriaceous, enclosing the grain.
Habitat: 	Alkaline soil in the interior.  June-September.
Synonyms:	Distichlis spicata (L.) Greene var. borealis (J. Presl) Beetle
		Distichlis spicata (L.) Greene var. divaricata Beetle
		Distichlis spicata (L.) Greene var. nana Beetle
		Distichlis spicata (L.) Greene var. stolonifera Beetle
		Distichlis spicata (L.) Greene var. stricta (Torr.) Scribn.
		Distichlis spicata (L.) Greene ssp. stricta (Torr.) Thorne
		Distichlis stricta (Torr.) Rydb.
		Distichlis stricta (Torr.) Rydb. var. dentata (Rydb.) C.L. Hitchc.