Muhlenbergia himalayensis Hack. ex Hook. fil.

Similar in habit to Muhlenbergia duthieana but has relatively shorter glumes, a slightly longer spikelet and a looser, more open panicle. It differs form Muhlenbergia huegelii by its less robust habit, narrower leaves and surface-creeping stolons.

Plants with short rhizomes. Culms tufted, usually ascending at base, 30–50 cm tall, 0.5–1 mm thick, many-noded, sub-inflated at nodes, branches glabrous. Leaf sheaths loose, longer than internodes; leaf blades 1–9 × 0.1–0.3 cm, flat, flaccid, scabrid on both surfaces; ligule ca. 0.5 mm, lacerate, glabrous. Panicle 5–15 cm, narrow, lax; branches slender, flexuose, usually naked below the middle. Spikelets narrowly lanceolate, 3–4 mm, purplish gray-green; glumes 3–4 mm, subequal or lower glume shorter than the upper, lanceolate, membranous, 1-veined, apex acuminate or acute; lemma 3–4 mm, equal to or slightly longer than glumes, lower 1/3 of back pilose; awn 9–14 mm, usually purple, slender, erect or slightly flexuose, scabrid. Anthers ca. 1.5 mm. Fl. and fr. Jul–Oct.

Loosely tufted perennial; culms knotty at the base, 35-80 cm high, erect, geniculately ascending or procumbent in the lower part and rooting from the nodes. Leaf-blades 5-25 cm long, 1.5-3 mm wide, scaberulous; ligule c.l mm long, obtuse. Panicle 10-25 cm long, nodding, loose, the spikelets not or only slightly clustered on the long flexuous primary branches. Spikelets 34 mm long; glumes subequal, 25-3.4 mm long, lanceolate-elliptic, acute, three-quarters to four-fifths as long as the spikelet; lemma as long as the spikelet, thinly hairy in the lower part, minute¬ly notched at the tip and bearing a fine awn 8-18 mm long.

Himalaya (Kashmir to Nepal).

Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan [Afghanistan, Bhutan, Kashmir, Nepal].

Distribution: Kashmir; Afghanistan; Himalayas.

2900 m

Moist ground of mountain slopes, valleys, ditches, under thickets; 2000–2900 m.