Northern bent

Agrostis mertensii is a tufted to loosely turf-forming perennial grass of the Poaceae family standing 10-40 cm tall, producing short ascending rhizomes that give rise to small clumps. Culms are slender, smooth and erect or geniculate at the base. Leaves are mostly basal and lower-cauline; the sheaths are smooth and open; the ligule is a hyaline membrane 1-3 mm long, blunt or somewhat erose; blades are flat to involute, 2-10 cm long and 1-3 mm wide, with a roughened upper surface. The inflorescence is an open ovoid to lanceolate panicle 3-10 cm long, with capillary branches that spread widely at anthesis and may contract afterwards; the branches are smooth or slightly scabrous and bear spikelets towards their tips. Spikelets are small, 2-3 mm long, single-flowered, often suffused with purple; the glumes are subequal, acute and roughly equal to the floret. The lemma is hyaline, 1.5-2.5 mm long and bears a fine bent dorsal awn 2-4 mm long arising from near the middle and exceeding the glumes. The palea is reduced. Native to subarctic and montane North America, Greenland and northern Eurasia, on cool moist gravels, snowbeds and tundra meadows.