Andropogon ternarius Michx.
Splitbeard Bluestem

Habit: 		Tufted perennial.
Culms: 		Erect, 80-120 cm. tall, simple below the upper half or more branching with long slender erect branches;
		upper nodes sometimes pubescent, otherwise glabrous.
Blades: 	Often purplish-glaucous, glabrous or the lower loosely hairy near the base, the upper very short,
		the lower 10-60 cm. long, 2-4 mm. wide, flat, soon becoming revolute.
Sheaths: 	Mostly shorter than the internodes, smooth to slightly rough.
Ligule: 	Membranous, truncate, about 1 mm. long.
Inflorescence: 	Elongate, loose, of a few to many pairs of silvery to creamy or grayish feathery racemes,
		usually on long-exserted peduncles from slender inconspicuous spathes, some of the lateral peduncles
		often short, from dilated spathes, rarely most of them so: racemes 3-6 cm. long, with mostly less
		than 12 joints, the rachis not flexuous, the internodes shorter than the spikelets, copiously long-villous.
Spikelets: 	Sessile spikelets 5-7 mm. long, lanceolate, acuminate.  Pedicellate spikelet of a single lanceolate
		glume 1-3 mm. long, scabrous, the pedicel a little shorter than the sessile spikelet, long villous.
Glumes: 	Of the sessile spikelets membranous, lanceolate, acuminate, the first broad at the base, deeply
		depressed on the back, 2-toothed, hairy on the 2 keels, a nerve between the keels above, the second
		about as long as the first, ciliate, scabrous keeled, 3-nerved.  Of the pedicellate spikelet single,
		lanceolate, 1-3 mm. long, scabrous.
Lemmas: 	Of the sessile spikelet sterile lemma and lemma shorter than the glumes, hyaline.
		Lemma about 2-15. mm. long, with an awn from the bifid apex, 15-25 mm. long, more or less twisted,
		scabrous, straight or slightly bent or curved.
Stamens: 	3.
Habitat: 	Dry, sandy soil, open woods.  Late summer and autumn.
Synonyms:	Andropogon ternarius Michx. var. ternarius
		Andropogon ternarius Michx. var. glaucescens (Scribn.) Fern. & Grisc.