Muhlenbergia asperifolia (Nees and Mey.),
Alkali Muhly

Habit: 		Pale or glaucous perennial with slender scaly rhizomes, tufted in large patches or colonies.
Culms: 		Branching at the base, spreading, slender, compressed, 10-40 cm. tall, the
		branches ascending or erect.
Blades: 	Flat or involute towards the tip, crowded, scabrous, mostly 2-5 cm. long, 1-2.5 mm. wide.
Sheaths: 	The upper shorter or about as long as the internodes, the lower short and crowded,
		compressed-keeled.
Ligule: 	Firm, erose, 0.5-1 mm. long.
Inflorescence: 	An open diffuse purplish panicle, 5-15 cm. long, about as wide at
		maturity breaking away.  The capillary scabrous, branches finally widely
		spreading, with a few scattered spikelets at the ends of the branches,
		pedicels mostly 10-20 mm. long.
Spikelets: 	1-flowered, flower perfect, occasionally 2-flowered.  Rachilla disarticulating
		above the glumes.
Glumes: 	Subequal, acute, from half to nearly as long as the spikelet, acute,
		often bristly pointed, thin, scabrous on the keel.
Lemmas: 	Thin, broad, 3-nerved, minutely mucronate from an obtuse apex, with a short callus.
Palea: 		Thin, nearly as long as the lemma, subequal, 2-toothed.
Fruit: 		Grain closely enveloped by the lemma.
Habitat: 	Damp or marshy, often alkaline soils along streams and ditches.
Kansas Range:	West three fifths.
Remarks: 	The grain is often transformed in a globular body of the fungus,
		Tilletia asperifolia Ell. & Everh.