Schizachyrium cirratum
Texas beardgrass, Texas bluestem, Texas schizachyrium
31-75 cm, often decumbent, not rooting or branching at the lower nodes, glabrous, glaucous, sometimes purplish.
3.5-5 mm long, 0.2-0.5 mm wide at the base, widening to 0.5-1 mm, straight, with a tuft of hairs at the base, distal 1/2 usually ciliate on 1 side, sometimes on both sides.
1-2.5 mm;
blades 6-17 cm long, 2-4 mm wide, glabrous, without a longitudinal stripe of white, spongy tissue.
4-6 cm, usually exerted, straight, often somewhat stiff, not flexuous, appearing linear;
internodes straight, with a tuft of hairs near the base, elsewhere glabrous or ciliate on the margins.
spikelets 8-10 mm;
calluses 0.3-0.6 mm, hairs 0.5-1.2 mm;
glumes glabrous or scabrous;
awns 13-24 mm.
spikelets 6-8 mm, about as long as the sessile spikelets, usually staminate, sometimes sterile, unawned.
= 20 (for var. cirratum).
Schizachyrium cirratum
Schizachyrium cirratum grows on rocky slopes, mostly at elevations of 5000 feet or higher, from southern California to western Texas into Mexico, and is known from South America. It is an excellent forage grass. Plants in the Flora region differ from those in central Mexico in being essentially non-rhizomatous and in having glabrous rame axes and pedicels that are ciliate only on the distal half.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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