Green needlegrass, a perennial bunchgrass, is sometimes called 

 green porcupinegrass and feather bunchgrass. The specific name 

 viridula is a diminutive of the Latin word viridis, meaning green, 

 and refers, as does the accepted common name, to the rather uniform 

 bright green color of both herbage and flower heads. This species 

 ranges from British Columbia to Minnesota, Kansas, New Mexico, 

 Arizona, Nevada, and eastern Washington. It does not occur in 

 California and perhaps is also absent from Oregon. Apparently 

 it is more common in Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado than in the 

 other western range States. It inhabits plains and foothills at 

 fairly low elevations and is common on mountain meadowlands and 

 open hillsides up to 9,000 feet in Wyoming and Montana. At the 

 southern limit of its range, the species occurs in dry, open parks 

 and canyons through the timbered mountains, chiefly in the ponderosa 

 pine belt. 



Green needlegrass is usually regarded ag good forage, being one 

 of the first grasses of its associations to start spring growth and 

 remaining green until late in the season, thus supplying succulent 

 forage over a long period. In general, this bunchgrass seems to be 

 more palatable to cattle and horses than to sheep because sheep feed 

 upon it chiefly in the spring and early summer, whereas cattle and 

 horses graze it rather freely season-long. Thisi species is sometimes 

 regarded as more palatable to cattle and horses than are certain of 

 the smaller needlegrasses. Although the sharp-pointed mature 

 "seeds", or fruits, of this grass annoy grazing animals to some extent, 

 especially sheep, they are not known to cause serious injury. They 

 are usually avoided by livestock, being left to mature and replenish 

 the stand. Although not abundant over large areas, green needle- 

 grass supplies a fair amount of forage on many ranges in mixture 

 with other grasses. It is also an important constituent of hay on 

 some grass meadows of Montana. 1 This grass flowers from May to 

 August, and the seeds are disseminated from July to September, 

 depending upon climatic conditions. 



Green needlegrass is a rather coarse, conspicuously fine-awned bunch- 

 grass growing iy 2 to 3 feet high or occasionally taller. The leaves 

 are mainly basal, inrolled, about one-third to one-half as long as 

 the stems and hairy at the junction of the blade and sheath. The 

 stem leaves are somewhat shorter. The greenish panicle is 4 to 8 

 inches long, narrow, loosely spikelike, and rather densely flowered. 

 The awn is commonly three-quarters to iy^ inches long, slender, twice- 

 bent, twisted to the second bend, and is not feathery. The two 

 nearly equal glumes are thin with three prominent green nerves. 

 The species closely resembles sleepy grass (S. robusta) in fact, 

 some authors regard sleepygrass as a variety of it but green needle- 

 grass is smaller, less robust throughout, and is mainly a northern 

 grass, whereas sleepygrass occurs principally in the Southwest. 



1 Office of Grazing Studies. Forest Service. NOTES ON NATIONAL FOREST RANGE PLANTS, 



PART 1, GRASSES. 2'-'4 pp. 1914. 



