沙鞭 sha bian

Arundo villosa Trinius, Sp. Gram. 3: t. 352. 1836; Am-mophila villosa (Trinius) Handel-Mazzetti; Psammochloa mon-golica Hitchcock; Timouria mongolica (Hitchcock) Roshevitz; T. villosa (Trinius) Handel-Mazzetti.

Perennial; rhizomes widely spreading; old basal sheaths yellowish brown, finally fibrous. Culms robust, erect, 1–2 m tall, 0.8–1 cm in diam. Leaf sheaths smooth, glabrous, papery, longer than internodes, loosely overlapping and clothing much of culm; leaf blades flat, stiff, up to 50 cm, 5–10 mm wide, abaxial surface smooth, glabrous, adaxial surface closely ribbed, apex usually convolute; ligule 5–8 mm. Panicle dense, spikelike, narrowly lanceolate in outline, up to 50 × 3–4.5 cm; branches erect, slender, scabrid. Spikelets 1–1.6 cm, pale yellowish; glumes puberulous, apex obtuse-erose; lemma 1–1.2 cm, densely villous with spreading ca. 4 mm hairs, apical teeth membranous, 0.4–0.6 mm, obtuse; awn 0.7–1 cm, bent just above base, slightly flexuous. Anthers ca. 7 mm. Fl. and fr. May–Sep.

Sand dunes; 900–2900 m. Gansu, Nei Mongol, Ningxia, Qinghai, N Shaanxi, Xinjiang [Mongolia].

This is a good sand-binding grass. The awns fall very early, so the spikelets usually appear to be awnless.