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R. W. Smith

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Roadsides, railroads, and disturbed ground generally; also in more natural habitats such as shores. A common weed introduced from the west and first collected in 1875 in Ionia Co., though known from the shores of Lake Superior as early as the 1880’s and conceivably in small part native.

The florets of the lateral spikelets of each group of 3 in this species are reduced to inconspicuous bristles; these spikelets are short-pediceled, the awn-like glumes on the pedicel thus forming a Y-shaped structure with the bristle-like reduced floret at the fork. The awns of the narrow fertile central floret are similar to the glumes of all three spikelets, and the entire spike appears to be a large mass of upwardly scabrous awns, making most unmanageable specimens when the dry rachis separates between each group of spikelets.

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