Flora of North America species comparison

2-4 m, usually 2-4 times as long as the panicles.

2-7 m, erect, densely clumped.

primarily basal;

sheaths mostly glabrous, with a dense tuft of hairs at the collars;

ligules 1-2 mm;

blades to 2 m long, 3-8 cm wide, mostly flat, cauline, ascending, arching, bluish-green, abaxial surfaces glabrous basally.

primarily basal;

sheaths open, often overlapping, glabrous or hairy;

auricles absent;

ligules of hairs;

blades to 2 m, flat to folded, arching, edges usually sharply serrate.

30-130 cm, only slightly, if at all, elevated above the foliage, whitish or pinkish when young.

terminal, plumose panicles, 30-130 cm, subtended by a long, ciliate bract;

branches stiff to flexible.

15-17 mm;

calluses to 1 mm, with hairs to 2 mm;

lemmas long-attenuate to an awn, awns 2.5-5 mm;

paleas to 4 mm;

stigmas exerted.

somewhat laterally compressed, usually unisexual, sometimes bisexual, with 2-9 unisexual florets;

disarticulation above the glumes and below the florets.

unequal, nearly as long as the spikelets, hyaline, 1-veined;

calluses pilose;

lemmas 3-5(7)-veined, long-acuminate, bifid and awned or entire and mucronate;

lemmas of pistillate and bisexual florets usually long-sericeous;

lemmas of staminate florets less hairy or glabrous;

lodicules 2, cuneate and irregularly lobed, ciliate;

paleas about 1/2 as long as the lemmas, 2-veined;

anthers of bisexual florets 3, 1.5-6 mm, those of the pistillate florets smaller or absent.

and florets not separating easily from the rachilla.

1.5-3 mm;

hila linear, about 1/2 as long as the caryopses;

embryos usually shorter than 1 mm.

= 9.

= 72.