Compilation
Andropogon hispidissimus

Perennial, cæspitose, up to over 3 ft. high, innovations extra- and intravaginal. Culms erect or geniculate-ascending, more or less compressed in the lower internodes, glabrous, smooth, quite simple or more often only for the first 3 or 4 internodes, then branched; lowest branches barren or mixed or like the following entering into the formation of a spatheate panicle. Leaves glaucous-pruinose; sheaths compressed, keeled, with the keels sometimes raised, quite glabrous, or with a few tubercle-based hairs at or towards the mouth, rarely ciliate on the upper margins, smooth; ligules short, truncate, ciliolate; blades linear from an equally wide base, acute or the lowest subacute to obtuse, the upper sometimes long-tapering to a fine point, 3–9 in. by 1 1/2–3 1/2 lin., folded in bud, then opening out and mostly quite flat, suberect and somewhat stiff, glabrous or with some tubercle-based hairs towards the base, particularly on the margins, the latter cartilaginous, slightly rough at least upwards, midrib slender, prominent below, primary lateral nerves 3–4 on each side, prominulous. Inflorescence consisting of a single terminal raceme or more often of several flowering branches, simple or divided from the base, forming tiers and collected into a scanty rarely copious and more or less fastigiate spatheate panicle; all or most of the rays simple (sometimes one or the other replaced by a leafy branch), slender, stiff, erect, from 1 1/2 to over 6 in. long (up to the insertion of the spatheole); subtending leaves like the preceding ones. Spatheoles narrow, long-tapering to an acute point, about 3–4 in. long, herbaceous to subherbaceous, glabrous, soon tightly inrolled; peduncle stoutly filiform, strict or slightly arched, usually subterminally exserted during flowering, then lengthening out and often exceeding the spatheole by more than 1 in. Racemes somewhat stout, 1–3 in. long, of 3–10 homogamous and frequently up to 12 heterogamous pairs; internodes of the tough portion of the raceme 2–1 lin. long, glabrous, of the fertile portion (joints) over 1 lin. long, the free part above the insertion of the sessile spikelet 1/4– 3/8 lin. long, slender, glabrous, with a very oblique tip, the part below (callus) completely fused with the base of the lower glume, subcylindric, up to 1 lin. long, very acute to pungent (with a short oblique articulation-face), rufously ciliate on the sides, cilia increasing upwards and forming a dense beard concealing the joint and the base of the pedicel; pedicels glabrous, 1/2 lin. long, disarticulating at the base with a very oblique scar. Fertile spikelets cylindric, slender, 3–3 1/2 lin. long (excluding the callus), brown, at length very dark. Glumes equal, coriaceous; lower tightly involute, truncate, minutely pubescent or hirtellous, about 9-nerved, nerves slightly raised, very obscure in transmitted light, with a few transverse veins in the tips; upper glume narrowly linear-oblong, subobtuse, sides much thinner than the hispidulous coriaceous very obtuse dorsal keel. Lower floret reduced to a linear-oblong hyaline ciliolate nerveless valve, 1 1/2 lin. long. Upper floret hermaphrodite: valve stipitiform from a very slender hyaline base, cartilaginous above it and passing into a stout geniculate awn, 2 to over 4 in. long, column at length dark brown, shortly greyish-pubescent, somewhat longer than the paler bristle; valvule 0. Lodicules microscopic. Stamens 0 or reduced to microscopic rudiments. Stigmas exserted terminally. Grain linear, 1 1/2–1 3/4 lin. long, semiterete, grooved on the face, whitish. Male spikelets all alike or the lowest somewhat reduced, dorsally flattened, oblong-lanceolate, subacute, 4–5 lin. long, green, the sessile almost symmetric, the pedicelled somewhat asymmetric and contorted; glumes subequal, the lower herbaceous, closely many-nerved, glabrous or variously hairy, hairs tubercle-based, few or many in a single row along the margin, or spread over a marginal zone or all over and then sometimes long, rigid and spreading, keels more or less unequally winged upwards, inflexed flaps very narrow; upper glume membranous, acute, 3-nerved, ciliate upwards; valves linear-oblanceolate, hyaline, 1-nerved, ciliolate, of the lower floret 3–3 1/2 lin., and obtuse, of the upper slightly shorter, narrower, acute; lodicules small; anthers 1 1/2 lin. long.