Festuca octoflora Walt. Sixweeks Fescue Habit: Annual, usually tufted. Culms: Slender, 5-40 cm. high, simple, glabrous or retrorsely puberulent. Blades: Less than 2 mm. wide, involute or rarely flat, 2-10 cm. long, soft, erect or ascending. Sheaths: Shorter than the internodes, loose. Ligule: Membranous, short. Inflorescence: Panicle narrow, erect, racemiform or one-sided, 3-12 cm. long, the branches short, appressed, rarely spreading. Spikelets: 5-10 mm. long, densely 3-13 flowered, the rachilla articulate between the flowers. Glumes: 2, membranous, narrow, unequal, keeled, acute, the first mostly nerved, about 2.5 mm. long, the second 3-nerved, 4 mm. long. Lemmas: More or less divergent, about 3.5-5 mm. long, acuminate, involute, convex, glabrous or scabrous, obscurely 5-nerved, usually awned; awn commonly 2-5 mm. long. Palea: A little shorter than its lemma, 2-keeled. Flower: Usually with but 1 stamen, and self-pollinated. Habitat: Open sterile ground. April-July. Kansas Range: Throughout. Remarks: A common pasture weed. Synonyms: Vulpia octoflora (Walt.) Rydb. var. octoflora sixweeks fescue Festuca octoflora Walt. Festuca octoflora Walt. var. aristulata Torr. ex L.H. Dewey