Calamagrostis epigeios (wood small-reed, "Yamaawa")

Japanese name: ヤマアワ （山粟）
Scientific name: Calamagrostis epigeios

[Overview]
A perennial 0.6–1.7 m tall, found in sunny grasslands, often forming large colonies.
It has rhizomes.
The stem is upright, slender and somewhat hard.
The leaves are linear, 20–50 cm long and 0.5–1.2 cm wide, and rough on both surfaces.
The leaf sheath has a large ligule.
An upright inflorescence 10–30 cm long is produced at the stem tip, densely bearing many spikelets.
Before flowering, the inflorescence branches are upright and form a slender cylinder, but when it flowers the branches open and it becomes conical.
The inflorescence branches are rough.
The spikelets are narrowly lanceolate, 0.5–0.8 cm long, yellowish green or tinged slightly brown to purple, and consist of 1 floret.
At the base of the floret are white hairs longer than the lemma.
There are 2 glumes, both linear-lanceolate, about the same length as the spikelet, narrowing at the tip into an awn-like point.
The lemma is no more than 1/2 the length of the glumes, thin and membranous, with 3 veins.

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