An annual grass with branching culms, narrow leaf-blades and slender spikes arranged along a common axis. Spikelets 1-flowered, sessile and alternate on the rachis. Scales 3; the 2 lower empty, narrow, membranous, acuminate; the flowering scale longer, of similar texture; palet narrow, shorter. Stamens 3. Styles distinct. Stigmas plumose. Grain linear, free, enclosed in the rigid scale. [Greek, resembling the genus Nardus.]

A monotypic genus of central North America. Type species: Schedonnardus texanus Steud.

1. Schedonnardus Paniculatus (Nutt.) Tre-Lease. Schedonnardus

Fig. 547

Lepturus paniculatus Nutt. Gen. 1: 81. 1818. Schedonnardus texanus Steud. Syn. PI. Gram. 146. 1855. Schedonnardus paniculatus Trelease, Branner & Coville, Rep. Geol. Surv. Ark. 1888: Part 4, 236. 1891.

Culms 8'-18' tall, erect, slender, rigid, branching at the base, scabrous. Sheaths crowded at the base of the culm, compressed, smooth and glabrous; ligule 1" long, truncate; blades l'-3' long, 1" wide or less, flat, usually erect; spikes numerous, rigid, widely spreading, alternate, the lower 2'-4' long, the axis and branches triangular; spikelets 1 1/4"-1 1/2" long, sessile and appressed, alternate; scales hispid on the keel, the second longer than the first and exceeded by the acute third one.

Open ground, North Dakota and Montana to Illinois, Texas and New Mexico. Texas Crab-grass, Wire-grass. July-Sept.