Plants cespitose, with caudices. Basal rosettes well-differentiated; blades 3-8 cm, ovate to lanceolate. Culms 25-75 cm, 2-3 mm thick, erect, purplish; nodes densely bearded with spreading to retrorse hairs above a glabrous ring; internodes pilose or ascending hirsute, hairs papillose-based, also puberulent; fall phase with nearly erect culms, branching from the mid- and upper culm nodes; branches short, ascending, bushy, with several reduced, partly enclosed secondary panicles. Cauline leaves 4-6; sheaths not overlapping, papillose-hirsute and puberulent; collars densely pubescent; ligules 2-5 mm, of hairs; blades 8-17 cm long, 8-18 mm wide, lanceolate, stiff,thick, abaxial surfaces densely soft-pubescent, velvety, adaxial surfaces glabrous or sparsely pilose, with 9-11 major veins slightly more prominent than the minor veins, bases rounded or subcordate, margins with papillose-based cilia, apices acuminate. Primary panicles 5-11 cm, almost as wide as long, shortly exserted, with few spikelets; rachises and branches scabridulous and finely pubescent, hairs papillose-based. Spikelets 3.7-4.3 mm long, 1.6-2.1 mm wide, obovoid, turgid, often shiny, sparsely pustulose-villous. Lower glumes 1.8-2.5 mm, loose, strongly veined, acute; upper glumes shorter than the spikelets, strongly veined, purplish at the base; lower florets sterile; upper florets with a minute tuft of hairs around the umbonate apices. 2n = 18.

Dichanthelium ravenelii grows in dry, sandy woodlands of the southeastern United States. The primary panicles develop from early May through June, and are at least partly open-pollinated. The secondary panicles, which are produced from July through September, are cleistogamous. Putative hybrids with other species are very rare.

Culms few, 4-6 dm, usually purplish, coarsely pubescent with spreading or ascending hairs, the nodes densely bearded; sheaths densely papillose-pilose with ascending hairs; ligule a band of hairs 2.5-4 mm; blades spreading or ascending, the larger ones 8-12 cm נ10-18 mm, soft-hairy beneath, glabrous above or sparsely ciliate toward the abruptly rounded base; primary panicle ovoid, 6-10 cm, included at base or exsert as much as 5 cm; spikelets thinly to densely villosulous, ellipsoid-obovoid, 3.5-4.2 mm; first glume up to half as long, triangular-ovate, acute; second glume and sterile lemma subequal, shorter than the fr; autumnal phase sparsely branched from the middle and upper nodes, the blades two-thirds as wide as those of the primary stems, the panicles much reduced, surpassed by the upper blades; 2n=18. Dry woods; Md. and Del. to Fla. and Tex., n. to s. Mo. (Dichanthelium r.)

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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