Plants perennial; stoloniferous, sometimes mat-forming. Culms (1)4-15 cm, initially erect, eventually bending and rooting at the base of the inflorescence. Leaves not basally aggregated on the primary culms; sheaths with a tuft of hairs to 2 mm at the throat; ligules of hairs; blades involute. Inflorescences terminal, short, dense panicles of spikelike branches, each subtended by leafy bracts and exceeded by the upper leaves; branches with 2-4 subsessile to shortly pedicellate spikelets. Spikelets laterally compressed, with 4-10 florets; disarticulation above the glumes. Glumes subequal to the adjacent lemmas, glabrous, 1-veined, rounded or weakly keeled, shortly awned to mucronate; florets bisexual; lemmas rounded or weakly keeled, densely pilose on the lower 1/2 and on the margins, thinly membranous, 3-veined, 2-lobed, lobes about 1/2 as long as the lemmas and obtuse, midveins extending into awns as long as or longer than the lobes, lateral veins not excurrent; paleas about as long as the lemmas; anthers 3. Caryopses oval in cross section, translucent; embryos more than 1/2 as long as the caryopses. x = 8. Name from the Greek dasys, thick with hair and chloë, grass.

Dasyochloa is a monotypic genus that is endemic to North America. It has been included in the past in each of the following: Triodia, Tridens, and Erioneuron. Dasyochloa differs from all three of these genera, but resembles Munroa, in its leafy-bracteate inflorescence (Caro 1981). Seedlings of Dasyochloa, like those of Erioneuron, are shaggy-white-villous. This indumentum is composed of myriads of hairlike, water soluble crystals that wash off in water. They are the product of transpiration and evaporation.

1.   Dasyochloa pulchella (Kunth) Willd. ex Rydb.
Fluffgrass

Culms (1)4-15 cm, scabrous or puberulent; peduncles (internode below the panicles) 3-7(11) cm. Sheaths striate, margins scarious; ligules 3-5 mm; blades (1)2-6 cm, abaxial surfaces scabrous, adaxial surfaces scabridulous. Panicles 1-2.5 cm long, 1-1.5 cm wide, densely white-pubescent, light green or purple-tinged. Spikelets (5)6-9(10) mm, with (4)6-10 florets. Lower glumes 6-8.5 mm; upper glumes 6.5-9 mm, as long as or longer than the florets; lemmas 3-5.5 mm, lobes (1)3-3.2 mm, midveins extending into straight (1.5)2.5-4 mm awns; paleas 2-3.5 mm, keels long pilose proximally, ciliate distally; anthers 0.2-0.5 mm. Caryopses 1-1.5 mm, translucent. 2n = 16.

Dasyochloa pulchella grows in rocky soils of arid regions.Its range extends from the western United States southward to central Mexico. It is the most common grass in the Larrea-Flourensia scrub of the southwestern United States and adjacent Mexico.