Aristida divaricata Humb. and Bonpl.
Poverty Threeawn

Habit:		Tufted perennial, erect or prostrate spreading
Culms:		30-90 cm. tall, branching below, retrorsely scabrous.
Blades:		Flat or usually loosely involute, or the teas' cm. Iong, 2-4 mm. wide, straight, rigid, strongly-nerved.
Sheaths:	Longer than the internodes, glabrous or pilose at the summit with a few long hairs.
Ligule:		Short, hairy.
Inflorescence: 	Panicle 30-50 cm. Iong, open, large, diffuse, up to half the height of the plant, exserted or
		sheathed at the base, branches spreading or reflexed, branchlets and short pedicels oppressed,
		bearing spikelets on the outer part.
Spikelets: 	Exclusive of awns about 12 mm. Iong, 1-flowered, narrow.
Glumes: 	Nearly equal 10-12 mm. long, narrowly linear, membranous, acuminate, purple or tawny,
		the first 1-nerved or obscurely 3-nerved, scabrous on the nerve, the second 1-nerved, produced
		into a short awn about 1 mm. long.
Lemmas:		Slender, about 10 mm. long, about as long as the glumes, the hairy callus about 1 mm. long,
		narrowed into a twisted beak about 2-5 mm. long, triple awned, unequal, about 1~15 mm. long,
		straight, terete, scabrous, slightly diverging when dry, the lateral somewhat shorter, ascending.
Palea:		Thin, included by the lemma.
Habitat:	Dry soil, hills and plains. July-September.