INTERMEDIATE WHEATGRASS--Elytrigia intermedia (Agropyron intermedium)
Description:  Intermediate wheatgrass, a perennial, cool-season sod-former, grows 2 to 4 1/2 feet tall.  The inflorescence is a spike 4 to 8 inches long with slightly overlapping spikelets set close to the flowering stems.  Glumes and lemmas are characteristically blunt-tipped or sharp-pointed but with rounded shoulders at the tip.  Leaf blades are blue-green or green, flat, and strongly ribbed.  Auricles are well developed and clasping.
Distribution, habitat:  Introduced from Russia in the 1930s, intermediate wheatgrass has become an important hay and pasture grass best adapted to areas of the western United States with 15 to 25 inches of precipitation.  It is used statewide in South Dakota.  Intermediate wheatgrass is adapted to a wide range of soils.
Comments:  Intermediate wheatgrass is sometimes confused with western wheatgrass but differs in its blunt-tipped glumes and lemmas.  It produces excellent hay and pasture either alone or in combination with alfalfa, ranking third behind smooth bromegrass and crested wheatgrass in tame grass plantings in the Dakotas.  Grazing readiness is about 2 weeks later than crested wheatgrass.  Drought tolerance is higher than for smooth bromegrass but less than crested wheatgrass.  It has moderate tolerance to salty soils.  Several regionally adapted varieties include 'Chief,' 'Oahe,' 'Slate,' 'Manska,' 'Reliant,' and 'Clarke."  It is seasonally fair to good for elk, deer, and cattle and provides good cover for upland birds.
A form of intermediate wheatgrass with pubescent spikelets is pubescent wheatgrass, at one time given species status as A. trichophorum.  There is some evidence that pubescent wheatgrass is more drought tolerant, persistent, and better adapted to low fertility soils.	Picture and Information can be found on pages 36 and 37 of Grassland Plants of South Dakota and the Northern Great Plains, by James R. Johnson and Gary E. Larson.  Published in 1999 by South Dakota State University, Brookings, SD.