It grows in tufts, with the stems from one to two feet
high in the wild state, in the garden (whence our specimen
here figured was taken) to a height of three feet: below,
the culms are slightly compressed, and there covered with
the long, pubescenti-scabrous, remarkably compressed and
ancipitate sheaths of the leaves. The leaves themselves
are, below, almost a foot in length, those of the culm remarkably
short, all of them very broad, linear, deep green,
acute, rough on both sides, and especially at the margin.
The ligule is oblong, glabrous. Panicle with many but
short branches, which seem to be almost verticillate.
Spikelets nearly an inch long, broadly linear. Outer valve
of the corolla purplish green, diaphanous at the extremity,
furnished with a twisted awn, inserted above the middle
of the back. At the base of each floret is a short tuft of
hairs.
The plant is perennial, and it flowers in July in its
native valley.—W. J . H.
