Plants cespitose, cylindrical to ovate above. Culms 30-100(140) cm; internodes usually glaucous; branches mostly erect, straight. Sheaths smooth; ligules 0.3-1.5 mm, sometimes ciliate, cilia to 0.7 mm; blades 6-48 cm long, 0.8-5 mm wide, glabrous or densely pubescent with spreading hairs. Inflorescence units 2-31 per culm; subtending sheaths (2.6)4.1-4.5(13.5) cm long, (1.5)2.7-4.7(8) mm wide; peduncles (1)5-31(195) mm, with 2-5 rames; rames (1.5)2.8-4.2(6) cm, exserted or not at maturity, pubescence increasing in density distally within each internode. Sessile spikelets (3)3.9-4.7(5.7) mm; callus hairs 1-5 mm; keels of lower glumes scabrous only beyond midlength; awns 8-24 mm; anthers 1, 0.6-1.4(1.7) mm, yellow or purple. Pedicellate spikelets vestigial or absent. 2n = 20.

Andropogon gyrans extends from the southeastern United States to the Caribbean and Central America.

Culms tufted, 3-10 dm, often branched above, mostly glabrous below, the short uppermost internodes densely villous at the summit; lvs flat, 3-4 mm wide, the upper usually crowded, broader (even to 15 mm) and spathe-like, brownish or coppery, 8-15 cm; racemes numerous, paired, 3-5 cm, white-villous, usually flexuous; sessile spikelet three-fourths as long as the sterile pedicel and shorter than the internode next above it; awn 1-2 cm, loosely twisted below; 2n=20. Fields and open woods; N.J. to O. and Mo., s. to Fla. and Tex. Variable, but the vars. not well defined. (A. elliottii, misapplied)

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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