Flower:

A single raceme 6 to 12+ inches long at the tip of the stem, with 8 to 40 branches that are mostly ascending to erect, the whole plume often nodding to one side. Spikelets (flower clusters) are in pairs along a branch, each spikelet 4 to 6 mm (to ¼ inch) long with 1 or 2 florets, the lower sterile and the upper fertile.

At the base of a spikelet is a pair of bracts (glumes), both similar in size and shape, 4 to 6 mm long, longer than the florets, thin and papery, narrowly lance-elliptic tapering to a pointed tip, awnless, the lower glume densely covered with straight, white hairs around the base and at the tip, more sparsely on the surface and along the edges, the hairs 2 to 4 times as long as the glume; the upper glume hairy mostly on the upper half. Florets are surrounded by a pair of bracts (lemma and palea), the lemma somewhat shorter than the glumes, translucent whitish, short-hairy along the edges, awnless; the sterile palea is inconspicuous, the fertile palea is about half as long as the lemma.

Leaves and stems:

Leaves are alternate, 8 to 30 inches long, 5 to 30 mm (to 1+ inch) wide, mostly flat, usually arching, fairly evenly distributed along the stem, hairless except on the upper surface at the base of the blade. The midvein is prominent and whitish. Leaves turn orange in fall.

Sheaths are hairless. The ligule (membrane where the leaf joins the sheath) is up to 1 mm long, more or less straight across and fringed with hairs up to 2 mm long. Nodes are covered in appressed hairs. Stems are unbranched, hairless, erect, single or multiple from the base. Dense colonies form from elongating, scaly rhizomes.

Fruit:

The entire spikelet drops off at maturity, leaving a naked stalk behind. Plants are not self-compatible, so viable seed within a single colony of clones is not often produced.

Notes:

Creeping Miscanthus, also known as Amur or Japanese Silvergrass, came to North America as an ornamental and has been known to escape cultivation, showing up in moist ditches, shores, woodland edges and clearings. Its creeping rhizomes allow it to form large, dense monocultures that crowd out other plants and it's currently listed as a Restricted Noxious Weed by the MN Dept. of Agriculture, which means it can no longer be sold or propagated in the state but eradication is not feasible due to its wide distribution (IOW, the invasive potential wasn't addressed soon enough to do much about it and now it's too late—the same story as a lot of weeds—heavy sigh). Of note is root fragments can resprout, so a combination of chemical and mechanical control is typically needed to wipe it out.

There is another Miscanthus species, M. sinensis (Bristle Miscanthus), that is apparently equally as problematic. While I have seen it (or some other Miscanthus) in a few landscape plantings, it is not known to be in the wild in Minnesota (yet); the closest such sightings are in northern Illinois. The hairs on its spikelets are less than twice as long as the glume, hair color ranges from white to yellowish to reddish, and lemmas have conspicuous awns. Vaguely similar is Phragmites, which has hairless glumes, awned lemmas, and hairs are only around the base of a floret.