Dichanthium sericeum subsp. sericeum

Tufted, usually strongly glaucous perennials, culms erect, sometimes branched near base, to c. 80 cm high, nodes fringed with spreading hairs to c. 3 mm long. Leaves glabrous (rarely with scattered hairs); blade to 15 cm long and 4 mm wide; ligule truncate, 1–2 mm long. Inflorescence with 2–6 racemes, each 1–6 cm long, digitately arranged, densely silky-hairy; pedicellate spikelets sterile (an empty lemma within the pair of glumes); sessile spikelets resembling pedicellate ones, c. 4 mm long (excluding awn), subtended by a tuft of silky hairs up to c. two-thirds as long as spikelet; lower glume, narrow-elliptic, 7–11-nerved, flattened dorsally, fringed with long hairs around the margin in the upper part; upper glume narrower, keeled, 3-nerved; sterile lemma about half as long as glumes, hyaline; fertile lemma inconspicuous, appearing as a slightly broader area toward the base of the brown, twice bent, twisting awn 2–3 cm long; palea absent. Flowers mainly Nov.–Apr.