Flora of North America species comparison

15-50 cm, slender, wiry;

internodes olive green to purplish, densely puberulent or glabrous;

fall phase spreading or decumbent, branching extensively from the lower and midculm nodes, producing numerous congested fascicles of reduced, flat or involute blades and reduced secondary panicles.

20-75 cm, erect or decumbent to sprawling, often purplish;

nodes and internodes glabrous or puberulent to pubescent;

fall phase initially nearly erect, often sprawling eventually, branches initially erect and apparently dichotomous, later rebranching, blades and secondary panicles smaller than those of the culms.

4-7;

sheaths much shorter than the internodes, densely crisp-puberulent, velvety-puberulent, or glabrous, often ciliate along the margins;

ligules shorter than 0.5 mm;

blades 2-7 cm long (seldom longer), 2.5-8 mm wide (rarely wider), spreading, firm, flat or slightly involute, without prominently raised veins, not longitudinally wrinkled, densely puberulent or glabrous abaxially, glabrous, sparsely puberulent, or pubescent adaxially, bases subcordate, with papillose-based cilia, margins often whitish and scabridulous.

4-6;

sheaths not overlapping, often glaucous, purplish, or olivaceous, glabrous or puberulent, margins usually ciliate;

ligules about 0.3 mm, membranous, ciliate, cilia longer than the membranous portion, rarely with adjacent, about 12 mm hairs;

blades 5-16 cm long, 5-25 mm wide, linear to ovate-lanceolate, glabrous or puberulent, with 9-13 major veins and 30-80 minor veins, bases cordate-clasping, often asymmetrical, with papillose-based marginal cilia.

5-12 cm long, 3-10 cm wide, open, exserted;

branches flexuous.

1.5-2.6 mm, obovoid-pyriform, planoconvex in side view, puberulent, pubescent, or glabrous, attenuate basally, apices usually broadly rounded.

2.2-3.2 mm long, 1.1-1.3 mm wide, ellipsoid, yellowish-green or purplish, pubescent.

0.6-1.4 mm, thin, weakly-veined, attached about 0.2 mm below the upper glumes, clasping at the base;

upper glumes as long as or slightly shorter than the lower lemmas;

upper florets 1.4-2 mm, broadly ellipsoid, apices subacute, minutely puberulent.

0.7-1.8 mm;

upper glumes and lower lemmas equaling or slightly shorter than the spikelets;

lower florets sterile;

upper florets often minutely umbonate.

rosettes well-differentiated;

blades 1.5-6 cm, ovate to lanceolate.

rosettes well-differentiated;

blades 1-14 cm long, to 22 mm wide, ovate to lanceolate.

panicles 2-7 cm long, 2/3 to nearly as wide as long, with relatively few spikelets, exserted;

branches flexuous, spreading or reflexed, scabridulous to densely puberulent.

= 18.

= 18.