Habit: 		Tufted perennial.
Culms: 		Erect or ascending, 60-130 cm. tall, often branching below, nodes from appressed hispid to glabrous.
Blades: 	5-16 cm. long, 3-6 mm. wide, commonly glaucous, glabrous or upper surface and margins somewhat rough.
Sheaths: 	Shorter than the internodes.
Ligule: 	Membranous, 1-2 mm. long.
Inflorescence: 	Panicle long-exserted or those of the branches short-exserted, at first narrow and green,
		finally somewhat spreading, becoming silvery white, silky, dense, oblong, mostly 7-15 cm. long, made up of
		numerous racemes 2-4 cm. long, the common axis mostly at least twice as long, but readily breaking;
		rachis straight, the joints and pedicels flat, with thick bearded margins, the center subhyaline,
		bearing a sessile fertile and a pedicellate rudimentary spikelet in pairs, rachis internodes and
		pedicels long villous.
Spikelets: 	About 4 mm. long, pedicellate spikelet reduced to a single scale 2-3 mm. long on a villous
		pedicel about 2 mm. long, the hairs 4-6 mm. long.
Glumes: 	The first several nerved, 2-toothed, villous on the lower half at the base, ciliate on the
		margins at and near the apex, scabrous towards the apex, the second 3-nerved, ciliate at or near the apex.
Lemmas: 	All about equal, that of the fertile spikelet with a delicate bent awn 10-15 mm. long, twisted below.
Habitat: 	Plains, prairies and rocky slopes, especially in limestone areas.  June-August.
Synonyms:	Bothriochloa saccharoides (Sw.) Rydb.