Plants perennial; cespitose, with innovations and short,
knotty rhizomes less than 4 mm thick. Culms 30-70(85) cm, erect, glabrous.
Sheaths hairy on the margins and at the apices, hairs to 7 mm; ligules
0.1-0.2 mm; blades 10-32 cm long, 3-8 mm wide, flat to involute, both
surfaces usually pilose, sometimes glabrous on both surfaces or glabrous abaxially
and sparsely pilose adaxially, often with a line of hairs behind the ligules,
hairs to 8 mm. Panicles (15)25-45(60) cm long, 15-35 cm wide, broadly
ovate to oblong, open, basal portions sometimes included in the uppermost leaf
sheaths; primary branches (6)12-20 cm long, diverging 20-90° from
the rachises, capillary, naked below; pulvini hairy, hairs to 6 mm; pedicels
1.5-17 mm, divergent or appressed. Spikelets 3-7.5 mm long, 1-2 mm wide,
linear-lanceolate, reddish-purple, sometimes olivaceous, with (4)6-12 florets;
disarticulation basipetal, glumes persistent. Glumes subequal
to equal, (1)1.3-2.3 mm, lanceolate, membranous to chartaceous; lemmas
(1)1.3-2.5 mm, ovate to lanceolate, leathery, 3-veined, apices acute; paleas
(1)1.2-2.4 mm, membranous, keels sometimes shortly ciliate, apices obtuse to
truncate; anthers 3, 0.3-0.5 mm, purplish. Caryopses 0.6-0.8 mm,
ellipsoid, strongly flattened, adaxial surfaces with 2 prominent ridges separated
by a groove, reddish-brown. 2n
= 20, 40, 42.
Eragrostis spectabilis
is native in the eastern portion of the Flora
region, extending from southern Canada through the United States, Mexico, and
Central America to Belize. It grows in fields and on the margins of woods, along
roadsides, and in other disturbed sites, usually in sandy to clay loam soils,
at 0-1830 m, and is associated with hardwood forests, Prosopsis-Acacia
grasslands, and shortgrass prairies. A showy species, E. spectabilis
is available commercially for planting as an ornamental.
Tufted, erect or ascending perennial 3-6 dm; lvs firm or stiff, 3-8 mm wide, tapering to a fine point; infl diffuse, two-thirds as long as the whole shoot, its base usually included in the upper sheath, its scabrous branches rigid, divaricate, pilose in the axils; spikelets purple, 5-7 mm, 7-11-fld, most of the lateral ones shorter than their loosely ascending to spreading pedicels; first glume 1-2 mm; lemmas persistent on the eventually fragmenting rachilla, 1.6-2.1 mm, compressed, scabrous on the keel, the lateral veins evident; 2n=20, 40. Dry soil, fields, and open woods; Me. to N.D., s. to Fla. and Tex. (E. pectinacea, misapplied)
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.