Flora of North America species comparison

5-90 cm, erect, slender, puberulent below the panicle.

annual, not woody, not branching above the base;

internodes usually hollow, rarely solid.

usually densely and softly retrorsely pubescent to pilose, upper sheaths sometimes glabrous;

auricles absent;

ligules 2-3 mm, glabrous, obtuse, lacerate;

blades to 16 cm long, 1-6 mm wide, both surfaces softly hairy.

closed, margins united for most of their length;

collars without tufts of hair on the sides;

auricles sometimes present;

ligules membranous, sometimes shortly ciliate, those of the upper and lower cauline leaves usually similar;

pseudopetioles absent;

blades linear to narrowly lanceolate, venation parallel, cross venation not evident, without arm or fusoid cells, cross sections non-Kranz, epidermes without microhairs, not papillate.

5-20 cm long, 3-8 cm wide, open, lax, drooping distally, usually 1-sided;

branches 1-4 cm, drooping, usually 1-sided and longer than the spikelets, usually at least 1 branch with 4-8 spikelets.

usually terminal panicles, sometimes reduced to racemes in depauperate plants;

disarticulation above the glumes and beneath each floret.

10-20 mm, usually shorter than the panicle branches, sides parallel or diverging distally, moderately laterally compressed, often purplish-tinged, not densely crowded, with 4-8 florets.

5-80 mm, not viviparous, terete to laterally compressed, with 3-30 bisexual florets, distal florets sometimes reduced;

rachillas prolonged beyond the bases of the distal florets.

villous, pubescent, or glabrous, margins hyaline;

lower glumes 4-9 mm, 1-veined;

upper glumes 7-13 mm, 3-5-veined;

lemmas 9-12 mm, lanceolate, glabrous or pubescent to pilose, 5-7-veined, rounded over the midvein, margins hyaline, often with some hairs longer than those on the backs, apices acuminate, hyaline, bifid, teeth 0.8-2(3) mm;

awns 10-18 mm, straight, arising 1.5 mm or more below the lemma apices;

anthers 0.5-1 mm.

usually unequal, rarely more or less equal, exceeded by the distal florets, usually longer than 1/4 the length of the adjacent florets, lanceolate, 1-9(11)-veined;

florets terete to laterally compressed;

calluses glabrous, not well developed;

lemmas lanceolate to ovate, rounded or keeled over the midvein, herbaceous to coriaceous, 5-13-veined, veins converging somewhat distally, apices usually minutely bilobed to bifid, rarely entire, usually awned, sometimes unawned, awns unbranched, terminal or subterminal, usually straight, sometimes geniculate;

paleas usually shorter than the lemmas;

lodicules 2, glabrous, not veined;

anthers 3;

ovaries with hairy apices;

styles 2, bases free.

narrowly ellipsoid to linear, longitudinally grooved;

hila linear;

embryos about 1/6 the length of the caryopses.

= 7.

= 14.