Flora of North America species comparison

4.5-55 cm, erect.

usually hollow, sometimes solid.

scabridulous, occasionally smooth;

ligules 1.2-8 mm, abaxial surfaces scabridulous, acute to subobtuse, becoming lacerate;

blades 0.3-13.5 cm long, 0.3-2.5 mm wide, antrorsely scabridulous, glabrous, apices prow-tipped.

distichous;

sheaths usually open to the base, varying to closed for nearly their full length;

auricles present or absent;

abaxial ligules absent;

adaxial ligules scarious or membranous, sometimes puberulent or scabridulous, usually not ciliate, cilia sometimes shorter than the base;

pseudopetioles rarely present;

blades usually linear, sometimes broadly so, venation parallel;

cross sections non-Kranz, mesophyll nonradiate, adaxial palisade layer absent, fusoid and arm cells usually absent;

midribs usually simple;

adaxial bulliform cells present;

stomates with parallel-sided subsidiary cells;

epidermes usually lacking bicellular microhairs, sometimes with unicellular microhairs, papillae usually absent, when present, rarely more than 1 per cell.

1.2-13.5 cm long, 1.5-10 cm wide, open;

primary branches to 7.3 cm, ascending to divergent, antrorsely scabridulous, occasionally smooth;

pedicels 0.9-11.3 mm, apices enlarged.

usually terminal, panicles, spikes, or racemes, usually ebracteate;

disarticulation usually below the florets, sometimes below the glumes, at the rachis nodes, or at the inflorescence bases.

1.7-3.3(3.5) mm, silvery-green to stramineous or purplish;

rachillas usually not prolonged beyond the base of the distal floret, sometimes prolonged, vestigial.

usually bisexual, infrequently unisexual or mixed, usually laterally compressed or not compressed, occasionally dorsally compressed, with 1-30 sexual florets, distal floret(s) often reduced, infrequently spikelets with 1-2 reduced or staminate basal florets and a single terminal sexual floret.

subequal to equal, 1.3-3.3(3.5) mm, scabridulous on the upper 1/2;

callus hairs 0.2-0.4 mm;

lemmas 1.3-2.6 mm, apices bifid, sometimes only the upper lemma awned, awns 2.1-3.9 mm, straight or geniculate;

paleas 0.9-1.7 mm;

anthers 0.2-0.5 mm.

usually 2, upper or lower glumes sometimes absent, rarely both glumes absent;

lemmas without uncinate hairs, awned or not, awns single, basal to apical;

paleas usually well-developed, sometimes reduced or absent;

lodicules 2(3), usually lanceolate and broadly membranous distally, rarely truncate and fleshy, usually not veined or obscurely veined, sometimes distinctly veined, sometimes ciliate;

anthers (1, 2)3;

ovaries glabrous or sometimes hairy distally, sometimes with an apical appendage;

haustorial synergids absent;

styles (1)2 (-4), bases close together, sometimes fused.

0.9-1.5 mm long, 0.3-0.5 mm wide, abaxial surfaces grooved in the distal 1/2, adaxial surfaces grooved the entire length.

hila linear, elliptic, ovate, or punctate;

endosperm usually hard, sometimes soft or liquid, with or without lipids, starch grains compound or simple;

embryos less than 1/2 the length of the caryopses;

epiblasts usually present;

scutellar cleft usually absent;

mesocotyl internode usually absent;

embryonic leaf margins overlapping, x = 7, 10.

= 14.