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.

50-150 cm, usually robust, erect;

nodes often swollen, densely bearded with thin retrorse hairs above a constricted, glabrous, viscid ring;

internodes grayish-purple, velvety-pubescent;

fall phase branching from the mid- and upper culm nodes, with long, repeatedly forking and often recurving branches, ultimately with fascicles of reduced blades and included secondary panicles.

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.

7-11;

sheaths not overlapping, narrowing distally, lustrous, bases sparsely to densely retrorsely villous, hairs papillose-based, summits purplish, with yellowish spots;

collars densely villous;

ligules 0.5-2 mm, of hairs;

blades 9-20 cm long, 9-20 mm wide, thick, densely soft pubescent, bases rounded to subcordate, margins ciliate basally.

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

2.2-2.8 mm long, 1.3-1.5 mm wide, ovoid-ellipsoid, often purplish basally, prominently veined, margins and apices sparsely to densely pubescent, hairs papillose-based.

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.

0.6-1.3 mm, subtruncate to acuminate;

lower florets sterile;

upper florets minutely apiculate.

rosettes well-differentiated;

blades 1.5-6 cm, ovate to lanceolate.

rosettes well-differentiated;

blades sometimes more than 10 cm, 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.

panicles 6-16 cm long, 5-12 cm wide, well-exserted, dense;

rachises softly pubescent basally;

branches often mottled with purplish viscid spots, glabrous.

= 18.

= 18.