Habit: 		Tufted perennial.
Culms: 		30-60 cm. tall, sometimes taller, erect, glabrous or sometimes pubescent at the nodes,
		sparingly branched.
Blades: 	Basal blades usually about one half the length of the culm, mostly involute-filiform,
		those of the culm 5-15 cm. long, 1-2 mm. wide, flat or involute, more or less minutely scabrous.
Sheaths: 	Usually longer than the internodes, the uppermost loose, inflated, enclosing the
		base of the panicle, naked at the throat, smooth or slightly scabrous.
Ligule: 	Membranous, 3-4 mm. long, decurrent, those of the sterile shoot shorter.
Inflorescence: 	Panicles 10-20 cm. long, narrow, loose, commonly included at base, the slender,
		scabrous branches ascending or appressed, bearing a few spikelets near the tip.
Spikelets: 	Exclusive of awns 15-20 mm. long, narrow, 1-flowered, rachilla disarticulating
		above the glumes.
Glumes: 	1.5-2 cm. long, subequal, tapering into a slender tip, 5-nerved, persistent.
Lemmas: 	8-12 mm. long, pale or finally brownish, narrow, strongly convolute, rigid,
		the callus slender, about 3 mm. long, pointed, densely barbed with tawny hairs,
		body of lemma villous with short appressed hairs sparingly so towards the apex,
		ending in twice-bent, slender awn, 10-15 cm. long which is spirally twisted
		below and flexuous above, often deciduous.
Palea: 		Enclosed within the lemma.
Fruit: 		Grain cylindrical, tightly included in the indurated fruiting lemma.
Habitat: 	Prairies, plains and dry hills.  June-August.
Use: 		Good forage grass previous to fruiting.
Synonyms:	Hesperostipa comata (Trin. & Rupr.) Barkworth
		Hesperostipa comata (Trin. & Rupr.) Barkworth ssp. comata
		Stipa comata Trin. & Rupr. ssp. intonsa Piper