Sitanion hystrix (Nutt.) J.G. Sm. var. brevifolium (J.G. Sm.) C. Hitchc., Bottlebrush Squirreltail

Habit: 		Tufted perennial.
Culms: 		10-50 cm. tall, erect to spreading, rather stiff scabrous above.
Blades: 	Flat or at length involute, from glabrous or puberulent to finely white-pubescent
		throughout, 5-20 cm. long, 1-3 (5) mm. wide, stiffly ascending or spreading, auricled.
Sheaths: 	Usually overlapping, the upper often inflated and enclosing the base of
		the spikelet, sometimes scabrous.
Ligule: 	Membranous, less than 1 mm. long.
Inflorescence: 	Spike cylindric, 2-7 (10) cm. long, erect, short-exserted or partly
		included, green or tinged with purple, usually 2 spikelets at a node, at maturity
		the awns spreading, and the rachis-joint disarticulating.
Spikelet: 	Sessile, two at each node of the articulate rachis, 2-6-flowered, the upper
		floret reduced.
Glumes: 	2, very narrow, 1-2-nerved, the nerves extending into scabrous awns, 5-9 cm.
		long, sometimes bifid to the middle or bearing a bristle or awn along one margin.
Lemma: 	8-10 mm. long, convex, obscurely nerved, scabrous, smooth or strigose, sometimes
		glaucous, with a long scabrous awn, 4-9 cm. long, at maturity divergent, the apex
		sometimes 2-toothed, the upper lemma usually short-awned.
Palea: 		Firm, nearly as long as the body of the lemma, the two keels serrulate.
Habitat: 	Dry hills, plains, open woods and rocky slopes.  May-July.
Kansas Range:	West two fifths: Republic and Cherokee counties.
Use: 		Except while in fruit, good forage.
Remarks: 	Very variable in irregular combinations.  The rachis joints attached to the
		spikelets above blown about by the wind and are a source of mechanical injury to stock,
		penetrating the mouth, nose and ears, working in by the forwardly barbed awns.
Synonyms:	Elymus elymoides (Raf.) Swezey ssp. brevifolius (J.G. Sm.) Barkworth, comb. nov. ined.
		Sitanion longifolium J.G. Sm.
		Sitanion velutinum Piper