Dichanthelium oligosanthes

Dichanthelium oligosanthes, Heller's rosette grass or Scribner's panicgrass, is a cool-season perennial bunchgrass in the family Poaceae native across most of North America from southern Canada through Mexico, occurring in dry prairies, sandy woodlands, glades, oak savannas, and open disturbed ground. It forms a basal winter rosette of short, broad, often pubescent leaves from which slender, erect to ascending culms 15-70 cm tall arise in spring. The culm leaves are flat, 4-10 mm wide and 4-10 cm long, with a short hairy ligule and conspicuously hairy sheaths. Two flowering phases occur, typical of the genus: a spring open-panicle phase with chasmogamous spikelets 2.5-4 mm long borne on slender pedicels, followed in summer and autumn by reduced, cleistogamous panicles tucked among the lower leaf sheaths. Spikelets are obovoid, hairy, with a glabrous fertile floret; grains are minute and oblong. The species is variable and several intergrading varieties are recognised across its range.