Flora of North America species comparison

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

(9)20-40 cm, erect or ascending.

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.

sparsely pubescent or glabrous;

ligules 0.8-1.5 mm, glabrous or hairy, obtuse;

blades 5-20 cm long, 2-5 mm wide, abaxial surfaces glabrous, adaxial surfaces pilose.

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.

2-7 cm long, 1-4 cm wide, erect, dense, obovoid, wedge-shaped at the base, sometimes interrupted;

branches shorter than the spikelets, erect, straight or almost so, sometimes verticillate.

(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.

12-25 mm, lanceolate, crowded, terete to moderately laterally compressed;

florets 5-10, bases concealed at maturity;

rachilla internodes concealed at maturity.

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.

scabrous to pubescent;

lower glumes 3-4 mm, 3-5-veined;

upper glumes 5-7 mm, 5-7-veined;

lemmas 7-10 mm long, 1.5-2 mm wide, lanceolate, glabrous, obscurely 7-veined, rounded over the midvein, margins rounded, not inrolled at maturity, apices sharply acute, bifid, teeth shorter than 1 mm;

awns 7-10 mm, flattened at the base, divaricate or recurved when mature, arising 1.5 mm or more below the lemma apices;

anthers 0.3-0.5 mm.

shorter than the paleas, thin, weakly inrolled or flat.

= 42.

= 14.