Habit: 		Perennial, usually in rather small tufts.
Culms: 		40-100 cm. tall, erect, or spreading, sometimes prostrate, glabrous 
                simple or branching below.
Blades: 	6-15 cm. long, 2-5 mm. wide, flat, more or less involute in drying, 
                tapering to a fine point, glabrous beneath, scabrous above.
Sheaths: 	Lower shorter than the internodes, the upper much longer, enclosing 
                the base of the panicle, margins long-ciliate towards the top, with 
                conspicuous tufts of white hairs at the collar.
Ligule: 	A ring of very short hairs.
Inflorescence: 	Panicles terminal and axillary lead-colored or purplish, the 
                well-developed panicles open, 12-20 cm. long, included at base 
                in the upper sheath, or sometimes contracted and wholly included, 
                the branches slender scattered, up to 8 cm. long, bearing 
                short-pediceled spikelets crowded along the outer part of the 
                main branchlets.
Spikelets: 	Pale, purplish or lead-colored, 2-2.5 mm. long, 1-flowered, awnless, 
                rachilla disarticulating above the glumes.
Glumes: 	Scabrous on the keel, first glume one third to one half as long as 
                the second, which is broader and nearly equal to the lemma.
Lemmas: 	Usually longer than the second glume, 1-nerved, acute.
Palea: 		2-nerved, acute, about equaling or a little shorter than the lemma.
Fruit: 		Grain free from the lemma and readily dropping off.
Habitat: 	Sandy open soil.  August-October.
Use: 		Forage
Remarks: 	An abundant element of sand  prairies.
Synonyms:	Sporobolus cryptandrus (Torr.) Gray ssp. fuscicola (Hook.) E.K. Jones & Fassett
		Sporobolus cryptandrus (Torr.) Gray var. fuscicola (Hook.) Pohl
		Sporobolus cryptandrus (Torr.) Gray var. occidentalis E.K. Jones & Fassett