Flora of North America species comparison

5-110 cm, clumped or solitary, erect or decumbent, occasionally cormlike at the base;

nodes glabrous.

inserted mostly on the lower 1/2 of the culms;

sheaths open, upper sheaths sometimes inflated;

auricles absent;

ligules 0.6-6.5 mm, truncate to acute, membranous, puberulent or glabrous, entire to lacerate;

blades 0.7-12 mm wide, flat or involute, glabrous or scabrous, blades of uppermost leaves sometimes short or absent.

terminal panicles, spikelike, capitate to cylindrical;

branches usually shorter than 5 mm, lower branches sometimes to 2 cm;

disarticulation below the glumes.

1.8-7 mm, pedicellate, strongly laterally compressed, oval in outline, with 1 floret;

rachillas not prolonged beyond the base of the floret.

equaling or exceeding the florets, membranous or coriaceous, free or connate in at least the lower 1/2, narrowing from above midlength, 3-veined, keeled, keels ciliate, at least basally, apices obtuse to acute or shortly awned;

calluses blunt, glabrous;

lemmas membranous, margins often connate in the lower 1/2, keeled, indistinctly 3-5-veined, apices truncate to acute, awned dorsally from just above the base to about midlength, geniculate or straight;

paleas absent or greatly reduced;

lodicules absent;

anthers 3, 0.3-4.1 mm;

ovaries glabrous;

styles fused, with 2 branches.

shorter than the lemmas, concealed at maturity, glabrous;

hila short, x = 7.