Holcus lanatus L.
Velvetgrass

Habit:		Grayish, velvety-pubescent perennial with rhizomes.
Culms: 		Densely and softly pubescent, 30-60 cm. tall, erect.
Blades: 	2.5-15 cm. long, 4-12 mm. wide, flat, velvety grayish-green.
Sheaths: 	Shorter or longer than the internodes, velvety grayish-green.
Ligule: 	1-2 mm. long, toothed, pubescent.
Inflorescence: 	Densely flowered purplish terminal panicles 8-15 cm. long, often
		narrow and interrupted below.
Spikelets: 	4 mm. long, 2-flowered, the lower flower perfect, the upper staminate,
		the pedicel disarticulating below the glumes, the rachilla curved and somewhat
		elongate below the first floret, not prolonged above the second floret.
Glumes: 	About equal, longer than the florets, villous, hirsute on the nerves,
		keeled, compressed, the first 1-nerved, acute or obtuse, the second broader
		than the first, 3-nerved, acute or short-awned, thin.
Lemmas: 	2 mm. long, glabrous except for the ciliate apex and shining, membranous,
		at length rigid, enclosing the paleas, the first awnless, the second 2-toothed,
		with a slender hooked dorsal awn, inserted just below the apex.
Palea: 		2-keeled, thin, nearly as long as the lemmas.
Habitat: 	Meadows and waste places.
Kansas Range:	Eastern Kansas, rare.
Use: 		Occasionally cultivated as a meadow grass but advantageously only on sandy or sterile soils.
Synonyms:	Nothoholcus lanatus (L.) Nash