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.

20-55 cm, most forming in the spring additional culms sometimes produced in the fall;

nodes glabrous or sparsely ascending-pubescent;

internodes all elongated, glabrous or puberulent;

fall phase with a few suberect branches from the lower and midculm nodes, branches not rebranching, blades slightly reduced, secondary panicles partially exserted.

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.

3-4;

lower sheaths not overlapping, sometimes pubescent;

upper sheaths overlapping, sparsely to densely pubescent, hairs papillose-based, margins ciliate;

ligules 0.3-0.5 mm, membranous, ciliate, cilia longer than the membranous bases;

blades 7-17 cm long, 7-23 mm wide, erect, pale yellow-green to bluish-green, glabrous, with 7-11 prominent major veins and 30-110 minor veins, bases tapered or rounded to truncate, margins with papillose-based cilia.

7-14 cm long, 1-5 cm wide, their length usually more than twice their width, narrowly cylindric, eventually well-exserted, with 9-46 spikelets;

branches strongly ascending, stiff.

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

3.2-4.1 mm long, 1.8-2.2 mm wide, obovoid, turgid, puberulent to subglabrous, with rounded apices.

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.

1.7-2.2 mm, narrowly triangular;

lower florets staminate;

upper florets longer than the upper glumes, mucronate.

rosettes well-differentiated;

blades 1.5-6 cm, ovate to lanceolate.

rosettes often poorly differentiated;

blades few, grading into the cauline blades.

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.

= 36.