Flora of North America species comparison

30-120 cm tall, 2-4 mm thick, erect or decumbent.

5-190 cm.

usually densely, often retrorsely, hairy, hairs sometimes confined to the throat;

auricles absent;

ligules 1-4 mm, glabrous or pilose, obtuse, lacerate to erose;

blades 4-30 cm long, 3-10 mm wide, flat, glabrous or hairy on both surfaces.

closed to near the top, usually pubescent;

auricles sometimes present;

ligules membranous, to 6 mm, usually erose or lacerate;

blades usually flat, rarely involute.

9-28 cm, usually open, erect or nodding;

lower branches shorter than 10 cm, 1-4 per node, spreading or ascending, with up to 5 spikelets variously distributed.

panicles, sometimes racemes in depauperate specimens, erect to nodding, open to dense, occasionally 1-sided;

branches usually ascending to spreading, sometimes reflexed or drooping.

(17)20-40 mm, shorter than at least some pedicels and branches, elliptic to lanceolate, strongly laterally compressed, not crowded or overlapping, with 4-12 florets.

5-70 mm, terete to laterally compressed, with 3-30 florets;

disarticulation above the glumes, beneath the florets.

smooth or scabrous, glabrous or pubescent;

lower glumes 7-12 mm, 5-7(9)-veined;

upper glumes 9-17 mm, 7-9(11)-veined, shorter than the lowest lemma;

lemmas 11-20 mm, lanceolate, laterally compressed, strongly keeled, usually glabrous, sometimes pubescent distally, smooth or scabrous, 9-13-veined, veins often raised and riblike, margins sometimes conspicuous, hyaline, whitish or partly purplish, apices entire or toothed, teeth acute, shorter than 1 mm;

awns absent or to 10 mm;

anthers 0.5-1 mm in cleistogamous florets, 2-5 mm in chasmogamous florets.

unequal, usually shorter than the adjacent lemmas, always shorter than the spikelets, glabrous or pubescent, usually acute, rarely mucronate;

lower glumes 1-7(9)-veined;

upper glumes 3-9(11)-veined;

lemmas 5-13-veined, rounded to keeled, glabrous or pubescent, apices entire, emarginate, or toothed, usually terminally or subterminally awned, sometimes with 3 distinct awns or unawned;

paleas usually shorter than the lemmas, ciliate on the keels, adnate to the caryopses;

anthers (2)3.

= 7.

= 42.