Sporobolus compositus (Tall Dropseed)

Also known as Composite Dropseed, Rough Dropseed. 

Tall Dropseed is a warm season, drought tolerant grass with fibrous roots.  It may decline with heavy grazing or mowing. Its native habitat includes black soil prairies, sand prairies, gravel prairies, hill prairies, sandy savannas, open woodlands in rocky upland areas, limestone glades. It does not grow on either deep sandy soils or on soils with a high water table. Tall Dropseed is saline tolerant. It forms a dense tuft of linear, mid-green leaves. and slender spikes of green to maroon flower spikelets.  

Tall Dropseed provides food for two species of grasshoppers which in turn serve as food for the birds. Birds also eat the seeds. Tall Dropseed provides nesting material or site for native bees.