This is a local grass in a few of the southern counties, where it is found on the rocky crests or slopes of black oak ridges, and is rarely associated with beech and sugar maple. I have seen this species a good many times but have found only a few tufts here and there and only a few culms to a tuft.

Culms 5-10 dm; sheaths scabrous or pilose; lf-blades 3 or 4, flat, the upper 10-20 cm נ2-5 mm; infl 1-2 dm, with 1-few spreading lower branches to 8 cm; spikelets short-pedicellate, pendulous, 7-11 mm; glumes nearly equal, oblong, 6.5-9 mm, nearly or quite equaling the lemmas; fertile lemmas 2, strongly nerved, about even with each other at the blunt tips; sterile lemmas ca 2 mm, obconic or hooded, surpassed by the fertile ones; 2n=18. Woods and banks; Md. to Ind. and Ill., s. to Fla. and Tex.

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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