Flora of North America species comparison

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

20-60 cm, erect or geniculately 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.

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.

7-20 cm long, 4-8 cm wide, racemose, open, nodding, often with few spikelets, usually secund;

branches sometimes longer than the spikelets, ascending-spreading, flexuous, slightly curved, usually with 1 spikelet.

(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.

15-70 mm, broadly oblong or ovate-lanceolate, terete to moderately laterally compressed;

florets 8-30, 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.

smooth or scabrous;

lower glumes 4.5-7 mm, 3-5(7)-veined;

upper glumes 6-8 mm, 7-veined;

lemmas 8-11 mm long, 2-2.4 mm wide, lanceolate, chartaceous, smooth or scabridulous, 7-9-veined, rounded over the midvein, margins hyaline, 0.6-0.9 mm wide, strongly angled above the middle, not inrolled at maturity, apices acute, bifid, teeth shorter than 1 mm;

awns 8-10 mm, flattened and sometimes twisted at the base, divaricate at maturity, arising 1.5 mm or more below the lemma apices;

anthers 1-1.3 mm.

equaling the paleas, thin, weakly inrolled or flat.

sheaths densely pilose;

ligules 1-1.5 mm, hairy, obtuse, erose, ciliolate;

blades 5-15 cm long, 4-6 mm wide, densely pilose on both surfaces.

= 42.

= 14.