These scattered plants have been variously treated. They were dismissed as "putative hybrid" in FNA 25, perhaps between the dichotomum complex and the angustifolia complex. Ladd & Thomas (2015) summarized the status of bicknellii in Missouri as follows: "Apparently this morpho-entity arises from hybrid events between members of Dichanthelium sect. Linearifolia and D. dichotomum or D. ashei." However, it is reasonable in Ky. to consider these plants a distinct species (W; LeBlond 2016). D. bicknellii may generally be distinguished from the dichotomum complex, laxiflorum, aciculare and allies as follows (W): blades mostly with L/W = 15-20 (versus 5-15), firm but not stiff and longitudinally grooved or wrinkled (versus lax or stiff and grooved or wrinkled); vernal blades 9-20 cm long (versus 3-16 cm), becoming longer upwards on the culm (versus smaller or similar in size), usually scabrous on adaxial/upper surface (versus not so except sometimes on margins); sheaths glabrous (versus glabrous or pubescent); second glume and sterile lemma longer than fertile lemma (versus shorter or longer). It is found in various types of rocky woods and glades from the mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain to the Appalachians and apparently disjunct in the Ozark-Ouachita region (W). In older treatments (e.g. F, Cr), these plants have mostly been included within D. boreale (Nash) Freckman, but that is now treated as a northern relative of dichotomum; it was not mapped in Ky. by Hitchcock & Chase (1950), FNA 25 or W. Reported southern extensions of boreale (e.g. Cr) appear to be based on plants derived from hybridization among dichotomum, acuminatum, linearifolium or other common species.