This widespread eastern species is most common on moist base-rich soils in partial shade, generally with regular disturbance such as along trails. During the early decades of settlement, M. schreberi was known as "nimble will" and prospered locally in woodland pastures and lawns. Meade (1796) provided some remarkable early notes from the central Bluegrass: "The only wild grass in the settled parts is what is here call’d the nimble-will more resembling the wire grass [perhaps Poa compressa] than any other in Virginia. It is rather finer... In the very earliest settlements as about Danville, the nimble-will, a very good pasture grass, has taken place of the weedy growth which first succeded the primitive cane brake. This will be the case in four or five years every where on this side [of] the Kentucky River." However, Rafinesque (1822) seems to have named this Panicum cynodon, implying C. dactylon, which is still a common error among students. The local midwestern plant known as M. X curtisetosa (Scribn.) Bush is also expected in Ky., since it is known from s. Ill. and s. Ohio (FNA 25). It may be derived from hybrids of schreberi and frondosa, and may well be overlooked in much of the Mississippi Valley.