Muhlenbergia mexicana (L.).
Wirestem Muhly

Habit: 		Perennial, with scaly creeping rhizomes.
Culms: 		Decumbent, prostrate, or erect, rooting at the lower nodes, freely branching and
		very leafy, top-heavy and bushy, glabrous below the nodes 15-60 cm. tall.
Blades: 	Flat, scabrous, 4-15 cm. long, 2-6 mm. wide, those of the branches smaller.
Sheaths: 	The uppermost of the branches crowded and overlapping, the lower usually
		shorter than the internodes, smooth or slightly scabrous.
Ligule: 	A short membrane.
Inflorescence: 	Numerous, contracted panicles 5-15 cm. long, terminal on the culm and
		its many rather short branches, usually partly enclosed within the upper sheath,
		mostly densely spikelet bearing from the base.
Spikelets: 	2.5-3 cm. long (including a short awn sometimes 4 mm.), 1-flowered, flower
		perfect, rachilla disarticulating above the glumes.
Glumes: 	Subequal, 2-3 mm. long or slightly more, narrow, tapering into an awn tip,
		scabrous especially on the keel.
Lemmas: 	About equal to the glumes variable, 3-nerved, acuminate, short pilose at base,
		awnless or short awned.
Palea: 		Thin, about equal to the lemma.
Habitat: 	Wet meadows, thickets and waste places.  June-September.
Kansas Range:	East three fourths.
Synonyms:	Muhlenbergia ambigua Torr.
		Muhlenbergia foliosa (Roemer & J.A. Schultes) Trin.
		Muhlenbergia foliosa (Roemer & J.A. Schultes) Trin. ssp. ambigua (Torr.) Scribn.
		Muhlenbergia foliosa (Roemer & J.A. Schultes) Trin. ssp. setiglumis (S. Wats.) Scribn.
		Muhlenbergia mexicana (L.) Trin. var. filiformis (Willd.) Scribn.