Helictochloa versicolor

Helictochloa versicolor is a densely tufted perennial grass of the Poaceae family growing 15-50 cm tall in compact tussocks from a fibrous root system, without rhizomes. Culms are erect, slender, smooth and few-noded. Leaf blades are stiff, narrow, conduplicate or inrolled, 5-15 cm long and 1-3 mm wide, glaucous-green, with scaberulous margins; leaf sheaths are smooth and rounded, the basal ones often persisting as a fibrous tuft. The ligule is an acute membrane 1-4 mm long. The inflorescence is a slender, narrow, contracted panicle 4-10 cm long with short erect to ascending branches bearing few spikelets, the whole often tinged purplish or variegated and giving the species its name. Spikelets are 8-12 mm long excluding the awns, contain two to four florets, and have shining persistent glumes nearly equalling the florets. Lemmas are firm, scabrid above and bear a stout geniculate twisted awn 8-12 mm long arising from the back. Native to subalpine and alpine stony grasslands, calcareous turfs and rocky slopes of the central and southern European mountain ranges, flowering in midsummer.