C. state. 



1 . Montana. 



a. Present designated or proposed legal 

 protection or regulation: None. 



b. Other current formal status 

 recommendations: The taxon is currently 

 listed as "critically endangered in 

 Montana, with taxonomic problems/ 

 questions involved" (state rank = SIQ) 

 (liTNHP, 1986). 



c. Review of past status: Previously 

 listed as "extinct" by the Montana Rare 

 Plant Project (Lesica et. al_. , 198^). 



3. Description. 



A. General nontechnical description: A slender 

 grass, about 3 feet tall, with floral parts which 

 are greenish in color, and which often have a 

 purplish tinge. The plants have a flowering head 

 which is narrow and slightly arching, or 

 occasionally somewhat open, and about 5 1/^ - 



6 1/2 inches long. Usually growing in clumps of 

 2-15 stems, but occasionally found as single- 

 stemmed plants. The leaf blades are about 1/8 - 

 5/16 inches wide. Spikelets generally have 2 or 3 

 florets, and are about 1/^ - 7/16 inches long. 

 Awns are present on the florets, and are about 

 1/8 - 3/16 inches long. Flowers during July, 

 with spikelets persisting into the first half of 

 August . 



B. Technical description: Perennial; cespitose and 

 shor t-rh i zomatous , or culms solitary, erect, 

 slender, about 3-noded , 8-11 dm tall; sheaths 

 glabrous to scabridulous above, often with a ring 

 of short, white hairs (sometimes obscure) just 

 above the nodes; blades flat, rather thin, 

 scabrous, 8-20 cm long, 3-7 mm broad; ligules 

 thin, truncate or rounded, erose-c i 1 io late and 

 slightly pubescent, 3-5 mm long; panicle 

 long-exser ted , nearly upright to somewhat nodding, 

 narrow to slightly open, 13-18 cm long, pale 

 green, slightly tinged with purple, the axis 

 glabrous below, scabrous above, the branches 

 scabrous, filiform, loosely ascending, in somewhat 

 distant fascicles, naked below, as much as 8 cm 

 long; spikelets shor t-ped iceled and somewhat 

 appressed along the branches, usually 3-f lowered 

 (the third floret sometimes reduced), 8-9 mm long 

 excluding awns, the rachilla appressed-si 1 ky , 

 often continued beyond the third floret; glumes 



