Pappophorum elegans, Nees.
This grass is perennial with wiry roots. Stems are erect ascending from a swollen woody base, thinly hairy and rarely glabrous, pale green and sometimes with red blotches, wiry, varying in length from 1 to 3 feet.
The leaf-sheath is thinly pubescent, some hairs being minutely gland-tipped.
The leaf-blade is narrow, linear-lanceolate, sharply acuminate, covered both above and below with hairs, many of which being minutely gland-tipped, convolute when young. The ligule is a ridge of hairs. Nodes are pubescent.
The inflorescence is a panicle with short branches, 1 to 3 inches long, rachis is pubescent; peduncle is 2 to 4 inches long, pubescent. The spikelets are pale green, sometimes purple tinged and appearing white when mature, softly pubescent, about 1/4 inch long including the awn; the rachilla is produced and disarticulates above the two lower glumes.
Fig. 216.—Pappophorum elegans.
1 and 2. The first and second glumes; 3. the third glume and its palea; 4. palea of the third glume; 5. lodicules, stamens and ovary; 6 and 7. fourth glume and its palea; 8 and 9. fifth glume and its palea; 10 and 11. sixth and seventh glumes.
There are 6 or 7 glumes in the spikelet. The first glume is lanceolate, acute, softly hairy, usually 9-nerved, or varying from 7 to 12 (some nerves do not reach the apex), about 1/4 inch long. The second glume is similar to the first but a little longer and both the glumes have broad hyaline margins. The third glume is broadly orbicular, concave, sub-chartaceous, 9-nerved, densely villous and with a tuft of hairs at the base where it joins the rachilla, cleft into 9 awn-like lobes, bisexual and paleate; the awns are alternately long and short, subulate, plumose in the lower half and scabrid above, the palea is oblong-ovate, sub-chartaceous, with two pubescent keels, bifid at the apex, and with 3 purple anthers. The ovary is ovoid or ovoid-oblong, with two white stigmas. Lodicules are two, small cuneate or quadrate. Grain ovoid or ovoid-oblong. The fourth glume is similar to the third glume but smaller, paleate with rudimentary anthers and two fleshy lodicules. The fifth, sixth and seventh glumes are imperfect and gradually decreasing in size, and with awns varying in number from 5 to 8, 3 to 5, and 1 to 3, respectively, minutely paleate or not.
This grass grows well in black cotton and rich loamy soils and is a hardy one. Cattle seem to eat this grass.