Habit: 		Tufted green or glaucous to purple perennial.
Culms: 		Erect, 50-150 cm. tall, slender to robust, flattened, tufted, the upper half freely branching.
Blades: 	4-6 cm. long, 2-8 mm. wide, usually somewhat rough near the base, otherwise mostly glabrous.
Sheaths: 	Shorter than the internodes, flattened, rough, glabrous to somewhat hairy, at the summit.
Sheaths: 	Shorter than the internodes, flattened, rough, glabrous to somewhat hairy, at the summit.
Ligule: 	Membranous, truncate, about 1 mm. long.
Inflorescence: 	Numerous slender curved spikelike racemes, 2-6 cm. long, solitary on slender peduncles
		which are wholly or partly included in the sheaths, the rachis slender, flexuous, pilose
		(sometimes copiously so), usually with 4-8 joints, the internodes tapering to the base, the apex
		obliquely cupshaped, bearing at each a pair of spikelets, the one sessile and perfect,
		the other pedicellate, staminate or rudimentary, the rachis internodes and pedicels ciliate
		with hairs 1-3 mm. long.
Spikelets: 	Sessile spikelet 6-8 mm. long, somewhat longer than the pedicel and rachis-joints, scabrous,
		the twisted bent awn 8-15 mm. long.  Pedicellate spikelet reduced to a single glume, usually 2-3 mm.
		long, short-awned, spreading, the pedicel pilose.
Glumes: 	Of fertile (sessile) spikelet subequal, acuminate, the first dorsally flattened, with a strong nerve
		near each margin, the midnerve faint; second thinner, keeled above, scabrous on the keel, ciliate on margin.
Sterile lemma: 	Nearly as long as the glumes, acuminate.
Fertile lemma: 	Entire or 2-toothed at the apex, shorter than the sterile lemma, with a twisted awn, 8-15 mm.
		long, bent about 3 mm. from the base.
Habitat: 	Prairies, plains, open woods, sand hills.  July-September.
Use: 		Although not the most palatable of grasses, nevertheless of very great forage value on the
		mixed prairie-plains of Kansas, and as hay.
Synonyms:	Schizachyrium scoparium (Michx.) Nash var. scoparium
		Andropogon praematurus Fern.
		Andropogon scoparius Michx. var. ducis Fern. & Grisc.
		Andropogon scoparius Michx. var. frequens F.T. Hubbard
		Andropogon scoparius Michx. var. neomexicanus (Nash) A.S. Hitchc.
		Andropogon scoparius Michx. var. polycladus Scribn. & Ball
		Andropogon scoparius Michx. var. septentrionalis Fern. & Grisc.