Inland wood oats can be found in the central and eastern United States, Manitoba, and northeastern Mexico. In the United States it grows as far north as Pennsylvania and Michigan. This species of grass typically grows in wooded areas and riparian zones. Riparian zones are the spaces between land and a river or stream. Inland wood oats grow to be about three feet tall.

Like many species of grass, inland wood oats are rhizomatous. Rhizomatous plants use rhizomes to send out roots or shoots from its nodes. Rhizomes are the main stems of these grasses, and they run underground horizontally. The nodes of rhizomatic plants have roots on the bottom of the nodes and shoots from the top of the nodes.

The Panicoideae subfamily contains many important plants. Sugarcane, corn, sorghum, and switchgrass are all a part of this subfamily. Switchgrass is an interesting plant that can frow to be nearly nine feet tall. It has many uses, such as: soil conservation, forage production, game cover, as an ornamental grass, in phytoremediation projects, fiber, electricity, heat production, for biosequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, and as a biomass crop for ethanol and butanol. Biosequestration is the process of storing carbon in a living carbon pool. Phytoremediation is the process of using living plants to clean up soil, air, and/or water.