Festuca scabrella: described in the quotations.
1846. The plain, where any vegetation exhibits itself, is covered with wild sage, with a few occasional blades of dead bunch-grass between the sage-hillocks.—E. Bryant, ‘What I saw in California,’ p. 134 (N.Y.).
1855. The “bunch grass” takes its name from the form in which it grows, which is in bunches—different from the short grass called “buffalo.”—Mr. Benton of Missouri, House of Repr., Jan. 16: Cong. Globe, p. 77, Appendix.
1860. But in the spring, when cattle go down from here, the grass is fresh and good, and the cattle get fat; and then on their return they get into the “bunch-grass country” before the frost comes, and you know bunch-grass is good all the year round.—H. C. Kimball, Tabernacle, Oct. 6: ‘Journal of Discourses,’ viii. 252.
1873. The grass on the plains here [northern Colorado] consists of two species of bunch grass, the common yellow and the white-topped varieties. The last is by far the richest, the top containing a small black seed which, with its husk, is considered as nutritious as grain.—J. H. Beadle, ‘The Undeveloped West,’ p. 656 (Phila., &c.).
1878. The bunch-grass is a pale green, or quite gray or yellow.—J. H. Beadle, ‘Western Wilds,’ p. 124.
