Cleistogenes squarrosa (Trin.) Keng

This distinctive species of arid places is recognized by its low mounds of dense foliage, few-flowered panicles of awned spikelets, and the curling, elongate upper internodes of the dried culm.

This is an excellent forage grass.

Culms densely tufted, forming low tussocks, lacking basal scaly buds, 10–30 cm tall, 0.5–0.8 mm in diam. at base, lower internodes much shorter than their leaf sheaths, upper internodes elongate, serpentine when dry. Leaf sheaths glabrous, the lower imbricate in fascicles; leaf blades narrowly linear, erect, flat or involute, 3–6 × 0.1–0.2 cm, scabrid, apex filiform; ligule ca. 0.2 mm. Panicle depauperate, 4–7 cm, scarcely exceeding leaves, composed of few spikelets borne directly on the central axis or lowermost on patent 2–3-spiculate branchlets. Spikelets 5–10 mm, green or purplish green, florets 2–4; glumes narrowly lanceolate, subacute to acuminate-aristulate; lower glume 1–2.4 mm, 1-veined; upper glume 3–5 mm, 1(–3)-veined; lemmas lanceolate, lowest 5–6 mm, pilose near margins, minutely 2-toothed; awn 2.5–7 mm; palea keels scabrid, extended into 2 mucros to 0.7 mm. Anthers ca. 2.5 mm. Fl. and fr. Jul–Sep.

Grasslands, mountain slopes, dry sandy and stony places. Gansu, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Henan, Jilin, Liaoning, Nei Mongol, Ningxia, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Xinjiang [Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Russia; SW Asia (Caucasus)].

Molinia squarrosa Trinius in Ledebour, Fl. Altaic. 1: 105. 1829; Cleistogenes andropogonoides Honda; C. squarrosa var. longearistata (Rendle) Keng; Diplachne squarrosa (Trinius) Maximowicz; D. squarrosa var. longearistata Rendle; Kengia an-dropogonoides (Honda) Packer; K. squarrosa (Trinius) Packer.