Fluffgrass

It is a perennial bunchgrass forming small tufts just a few centimeters high with clumps of short, sharp-pointed leaves. The tufts are often enveloped in masses of cottony fibers; these are actually hairlike strands of excreted and evaporated mineral salts. The leaves produce soft, cob-webby hairs that dissolve in water, after summer rains. The hairs are typically not present in spring. Numerous hairless, wiry, stems are 5–13 centimetres (2–5 in) tall. The hairy inflorescence is a spikelet on the end of the stem, surrounded by a bundle of bractlike leaves, and is 6–12 cm (2+1⁄2–4+1⁄2 in) long. The spikelets are pale in color, sometimes striped with red, purple, or green. It blooms from February to May.

It is native to the Southwestern United States, California, and northern to central Mexico, where it grows in dry regions such as deserts.