Triplasis purpureus (Walt.).
Sandgrass

Habit: 		Slender tufted annual, often purple.
Culms: 		30-75 cm. tall, erect, widely spreading or ascending, wiry, branched below, pubescent
		at the nodes.
Blades: 	Upper very short, 6-20 mm. long, less than 2 mm. wide, the lower 4-8 cm. long,
		2-4 mm. wide, flat or loosely involute, rigid, scabrous, sparsely ciliate.
Sheaths: 	Shorter than the internodes, more or less scabrous, or pubescent, often
		villous at the throat.
Ligule: 	A ring of hairs less than 1 mm. long.
Inflorescence: 	Terminal panicles 3-7 cm. long, the few stiff branches finally divergent;
		smaller panicles (partially hidden in the sheaths) produced at the nodes late
		in the season, and a single cleistogamous spikelet, reduced to a single large
		floret at the base of the lower sheaths.
Spikelets: 	Usually rose-purple, 2-5-flowered, 5-8 mm. long, short pediceled, the
		florets remote, rachilla slender disarticulating above the glumes and between the florets.
Glumes: 	Nearly equal, 2-4 mm. long, shorter than the lower lemmas, smooth, 1-nerved, acute.
Lemmas: 	About 4 mm. long, oblong, 2-lobed at the apex, with erose-truncate lobes;
		3-nerved, the nerves and callus densely short villous, midvein excurrent in a
		short awn, scarcely exceeding the truncate lobes.
Palea: 		Shorter than its lemma, broad, the nerves nearly marginal and densely
		silky-villous from the middle to the apex.
Fruit: 		Grain about 2 mm. long.
Habitat: 	Sandy places. August-September.
Kansas Range:	Southwest, central and northeast.
Use: 		Of some value in holding sand.
Remarks: 	In autumn the swollen sheaths containing cleistogenes are conspicuous.
Synonyms:	Triplasis intermedia Nash