Britton's Beargrass

This plant has no aboveground stem. It is a rosette of leaves attached at a bulblike base that arises from an underground caudex, a modified stem. The grasslike leaves are up to a meter long and rarely more than a centimeter wide. The edges are serrated with cartilaginous teeth. The inflorescence is a large, erect panicle up to a meter tall. It has small bracts and reduced leaves. The many small flowers have tepals measuring only 1 or 2 millimeters long. While the flowers are bisexual, they are functionally unisexual, with either the male or female part reduced and not functional. Most plants have either functionally male or female flowers, but some have both. Blooming occurs in March through May. The flowers give rise to winged capsules roughly a centimeter long by a centimeter wide. The plant reproduces sexually via seed and vegetatively by cloning.

The plant is limited to seven counties in Central Florida, where it grows in several habitat types. It is known from various kinds of Florida scrub habitat, hammocks, and sandhills. The habitat types are different in many ways but they all have dry, well-drained, low-nutrient sandy soils and are all maintained by wildfire. The plant is present on Lake Wales Ridge, home to many rare Central Florida endemic plants. It grows alongside Polygala lewtonii, Polygonum dentoceras, Polygonum basiramia, Paronychia chartacea subsp. chartacea, Persea humilis, Liatris ohlingerae, Hypericum cumulicola, Conradina brevifolia, Calamintha ashei, and Bonamia grandiflora. The plant is relatively widespread compared to other rare local plants, but most of the populations are small and some are made up of only female individuals.