Stipa splendens Trin.

This species tolerates high levels of salinity and is used for improving saline and alkaline land. It is also a good forage grass and a source of fiber.

Tufted grass 0.7-2.5 m. Leaf blades narrow, scabrous. Panicle many-flowered, 15-50 cm long, silver silky. V - early spring (some leaves overwinter) to late autumn. Fl - late spring to mid summer. Fr - early autumn. P - by seed and division. Produces dense cluster. Good for grouping. Requires well-drained soil. Z 5.

Perennial, forming large dense tussocks; roots thick, tough, coated with sand; old basal sheaths fibrous. Culms stiff, erect, 0.5–2.5 m tall, 3–5 mm in diam., 2–3-noded. Leaf sheaths glabrous; leaf blades convolute, tough, 30–60 cm, 5–6 mm wide, abaxial surface smooth; ligule triangular, 5–10(–17) mm, acute. Panicle pyramidal, (15–)30–60 cm; branches 2–6 per node, ascending or spreading, 8–17 cm, lower part bare. Spikelets 4.5–7 mm, gray-green with purple-brown base; glumes unequal, elliptic, lower glume 4–5 mm, 1-veined, upper glume 6–7 mm, 3-veined, scabrid, apex acute or denticulate; callus obtuse, 0.3–0.6 mm; lemma 4.8–5.7 mm, scaberulous-puberulous, also evenly pilose with longer hairs, apex 2-toothed; awn 0.5–1.2 cm, caducous, straight or slightly curving and indistinctly twisted below, scabrid. Anthers 2.5–3.5 mm, bearded at apex. Fl. and fr. Jun–Sep.

European Russia (southeastern regions), Central Asia, Siberia (southwestern regions) and adjacent China. In dry steppes and semideserts with saline soil.

Gansu, Heilongjiang, Henan, Nei Mongol, Ningxia, Qinghai, Shanxi, Sichuan, Xinjiang, Xizang, Yunnan [Afghanistan, N India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenstan, Uzbekistan].

Dry mountain slopes, grassy places on slightly alkaline, sandy soil; 900–4500 m.

Stipa splendens Trinius, Neue Entdeck. Pflanzenk. 2: 54. 1821; S. altaica Trinius; S. schlagintweitii Mez; Lasiagrostis splendens (Trinius) Kunth; Stipa kokonorica K. S. Hao.