''Dasyochloa'' is a monotypic genus containing the single species ''Dasyochloa pulchella''Grass Manual Treatment
(formerly ''Erioneuron pulchellum''),Mojave Desert Wildflowers, Pam Mackay, 2nd Ed. 2013, p. 314 known as desert fluff-grass or low woollygrass, a densely tufted

perennial A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also wide ...

grass Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns an ...

found in the deserts of the southwestern United States.Mojave Desert Wildflowers, Pam Mackay, 2nd Ed. 2013, p. 283

Range and habitat

It is native to the

Southwestern United States The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural region of the United States that generally includes Arizona, New Mexico, and adjacent portions of California, Colorado, Ne ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, and northern to central Mexico, where it grows in dry regions such as deserts.

Growth pattern

It is a perennial

bunchgrass Tussock grasses or bunch grasses are a group of grass species in the family Poaceae. They usually grow as singular plants in clumps, tufts, hummocks, or bunches, rather than forming a sod or lawn, in meadows, grasslands, and prairies. As perennial ...

forming small tufts just a few centimeters high with clumps of short, sharp-pointed leaves. The tufts are often enveloped in masses of cottony fibers; these are actually hairlike strands of excreted and evaporated

mineral salts In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid chemical compound with a fairly well-defined chemical composition A chemical composition specifies the identity, arrangement, and ratio of the elements ma ...

Stems and leaves

The leaves produce soft, cob-webby hairs that dissolve in water, after summer rains. The hairs are typically not present in spring. Numerous hairless, wiry, stems are tall.

Inflorescence

The hairy

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed o ...

is a spikelet on the end of the stem, surrounded by a bundle of bractlike leaves, and is 1/4" to 1/2" long. The spikelets which are pale in color, sometimes striped with red, purple, or green. It blooms from February to May.

References

External links

Jepson Manual Treatment

USDA Plants Profile

Photo gallery
{{Taxonbar, from1=Q1926237, from2=Q32855988 Chloridoideae Monotypic Poaceae genera Bunchgrasses of North America Grasses of Mexico Grasses of the United States Native grasses of California Flora of the California desert regions Flora of the Sonoran Deserts Flora of the Chihuahuan Desert Flora of Northwestern Mexico Flora without expected TNC conservation status