Alpine hairgrass

Deschampsia media, sometimes called alpine hair-grass or middle hair-grass, is a tufted perennial grass of the family Poaceae. It forms dense compact tussocks of slender, in-rolled to flat, somewhat rigid blades, with upright culms typically 30 to 60 cm tall bearing open, often nodding, finely branched panicles of small spikelets. Each spikelet contains two florets enclosed by glabrous, shining glumes; the lemmas are membranous with a short, scarcely exserted dorsal awn, in keeping with the hair-grass genus to which the species belongs. The fine wiry foliage and airy inflorescences give the plant a delicate, silvery appearance when in flower. The species is native to central and southern Europe, north-western Africa (Morocco) and the Caucasus, where it grows in seasonally moist meadows, marshy depressions, calcareous flushes and damp open ground, often at submontane to montane elevations. Like other species of Deschampsia, it contributes to grassland communities and serves as a host for several moth larvae.