Flora of North America species comparison

80-160 cm, erect or spreading, sometimes rooting at the lowest nodes, often developing short axillary flowering shoots at most upper nodes when mature;

lower nodes glabrous or puberulent;

upper nodes glabrous.

annual, usually solid, sometimes somewhat woody, sometimes decumbent, often branched above the base.

glabrous;

ligules absent;

blades 1-27 cm long, 0.8-30 mm wide.

distichous;

sheaths usually open;

auricles usually absent;

abaxial ligules usually absent, occasionally present as a line of hairs;

adaxial ligules membranous, sometimes also ciliate, or of hairs, sometimes absent;

blades sometimes pseudopetiolate;

mesophyll radiate or non-radiate;

adaxial palisade layer absent;

fusoid cells usually absent;

arm cells usually absent;

kranz anatomy absent or present;

midribs usually simple, rarely complex;

adaxial bulliform cells present;

stomata with triangular or dome-shaped subsidiary cells;

bicellular microhairs usually present, with a long, narrow distal cell;

papillae absent or present.

of primary culms 7-35 cm, rachises and branches glabrous or hispid, hairs to 3 mm, papillose-based;

primary branches 2-8 cm, usually spreading and rather distant, often with secondary branches.

ebracteate (Paniceae) or bracteate (most Andropogoneae) panicles, racemes, spikes, or complex arrangements of rames (in the Andropogoneae), usually bisexual, sometimes unisexual;

disarticulation usually below the glumes, frequently in the secondary and higher order axes of the inflorescences.

2.5-5 mm, disarticulating at maturity, usually purple or streaked with purple, usually hispid, hairs papillose-based.

bisexual or unisexual, frequently paired or in triplets, the members of each unit usually with pedicels of different lengths or 1 spikelet sessile.

usually 2, equal or unequal, shorter or longer than the adjacent florets, sometimes exceeding the distal florets;

florets 2(-4), usually dorsally compressed, sometimes terete or laterally compressed;

lower florets sterile or staminate, frequently reduced to a lemma;

upper florets usually bisexual;

lemmas hyaline to coriaceous, lacking uncinate hairs, often terminally awned;

awns single;

paleas of bisexual florets well-developed, reduced, or absent;

lodicules usually 2, sometimes absent, cuneate, free, fleshy, usually glabrous;

anthers 1-3;

ovaries usually glabrous;

haustorial synergids absent;

style branches 2, free and close or fused at the base.

about as long as the spikelets;

lower florets sterile;

lower lemmas unawned or awned, awns to 16 mm;

lower paleas well-developed;

upper lemmas broadly obovoid or orbicular, narrowing to an acute or acuminate coriaceous portion that extends into the membranous tip, boundary between the coriaceous and membranous portions not marked by minute hairs;

anthers 0.4-1.1 mm.

1.2-2.5 mm, broadly obovoid or spheroid, yellowish;

embryos 1.4-2 mm, 80-91% as long as the caryopses.

hila usually punctate;

endosperm hard, without lipid;

starch grains simple;

embryos large in relation to the caryopses, usually waisted;

epiblasts usually absent;

scutellar cleft present;

mesocotyl internode elongated;

embryonic leaf margins usually overlapping, rarely just meeting, x = 5, (7), 9, 10, (12), (14).

= 36.