Habit: 		Green or glaucous perennial in large bunches, with numerous creeping scaly rhizomes.
Culms: 		1-2 m. high, glabrous, tough, hard, solitary or clumped.
Blades: 	Elongated, 10-60 cm. long or more, 3-15 mm. wide, flat, rough on the margins,
		glabrous except sometimes pilose at least near the base above.
Sheaths: 	Shorter than the internodes, or longer below, often ciliate, sometimes
		villous at the throat, otherwise smooth.
Ligule: 	Dense ring of hairs 3-4 mm. long.
Inflorescence: 	Panicle long-exserted, 15-50 cm. long, open ovate to pyramidal,
		mostly one third to half as wide as long, the branches ascending or spreading,
		spikelet bearing in the outer half to two thirds.
Spikelets: 	3.5-5 mm. long (3-6), ovate, acuminate, prominently nerved, turgid,
usually gaping, rather short pedicelled, lower floret usually staminate.
Glumes: 	First clasping, acuminate, or cuspidate, 5-nerved, about two thirds
		as long as the spikelet, rarely equaling the sterile lemma, the second
		longer than the sterile lemma, both spreading and pointed, exceeding the fruit.
Fruit: 		Smooth and shiny, about three fourths as long as the spikelet,
		narrowly ovate, the margins of the lemma inrolled only at the base.
Habitat: 	Prairies, sand prairies, moist open ground.  August-September.
Use: 		One of the important prairie forage grasses, a good hay grass, if cut young.