Plants usually perennial; sometimes rhizomatous. Culms 40-150 cm, erect, simple or branching. Leaves not aromatic; ligules membranous; blades lanceolate to broadly linear, sometimes pseudopetiolate. Inflorescences terminal, open or contracted panicles, with evident rachises with numerous subverticellate branches that terminate in 1-3 short rames; rames with slender internodes and 2-5 sessile-pedicellate homogamous spikelet pairs; disarticulation in the rames, below the sessile spikelets. Spikelets usually lanceolate. Glumes equal, chartaceous, often pilose, scarcely keeled, with several raised veins, acute; calluses glabrous or densely hairy; lower florets usually staminate, unawned; upper florets bisexual; upper lemmas bilobed, with a geniculate awn; anthers 3. x = 10. Pedicels slender, not fused to the rames axes. Name from the Greek spodios, ash-colored or gray, and pogon, beard, a reference to the spikelet hairs.

Spodiopogon is a genus of 10-15 species, most of which grow in subtropical regions of the Eastern Hemisphere, although Spodiopogon sibiricus extends north to Irkutsk, Russia. One species is cultivated in the Flora region.

1.   Spodiopogon sibiricus Trin.
Silver Spike

Plants rhizomatous. Culms 90-150 cm tall, 2-4 mm thick. Basal leaves bladeless or with reduced blades; cauline sheaths mostly glabrous, but pilose at the collar; ligules of cauline leaves 2-3 mm, ciliate on the erose margin; cauline blades to 35 cm long, 8-20 mm wide, pilose on both surfaces, margins ciliate near the base, cilia papillose-based. Panicles 12-20 cm long, 2-4 cm wide, shortly exserted; rachises glabrous, smooth; primary branches 2-6 cm; rames 2-3.5 cm. Spikelets 4.5-5.5 mm. Lower glumes pilose throughout, 5-9-veined; upper glumes of the sessile spikelets pilose on the margins, those of the pedicellate spikelets pilose throughout; callus hairs about 1/4 as long as the spikelets; awns 0.7-1.2 cm; anthers of the sessile spikelets about 2 mm, those of the pedicellate spikelets about 3 mm. 2n = 40, 42.

Spodiopogon sibiricus is native to the grasslands of the montane regions that extend from central China to northeastern Siberia. It is grown as an ornamental in Canada and the contiguous United States.