Dactylis glomerata L. Orchardgrass Habit: Tall perennials in large clumps, with creeping rhizomes. Culms: 60-120 cm. tall, tufted, simple. Blades: 7-25 cm. long, 2-8 mm. wide, long acuminate, flat, scabrous on surfaces and margins. Sheaths: Upper shorter than the internodes, lower longer, flattened, smooth to rough. Ligules: Membranous, 2-5 mm. long. Inflorescence: Panicles 5-20 cm. long, contracted, with the spikelets crowded at the ends of the few stiff branches in one-sided headlike clusters, branches ascending or spreading in flower, contracted after flowering. Spikelets: 5-9 mm. long, 2-5-flowered, crowded, compressed, nearly sessile in dense fascicles, rachilla finally disarticulating between the florets. Glumes: 1-3-nerved, acute often mucronate, the second the larger, hispid ciliate on the keel. Lemmas: 4-6 mm. long, about 5-nerved, compressed-keeled, pointed or short-awned, more rigid than the glumes, more or less hispidulous, ciliate on the keel. Palea: Nearly as long as its lemma, 2-keeled. Habitat: Fields, meadows, and waste places. May-June. Kansas Range: Scattered, but more common eastward. Use: Commonly cultivated as a meadow and pasture grass; of most value in mid spring and in somewhat shaded situations. Synonyms: Dactylis glomerata L. ssp. glomerata Dactylis glomerata L. var. ciliata Peterm. Dactylis glomerata L. var. detonsa Fries Dactylis glomerata L. var. vivipara Parl.