Flora of North America species comparison

30-90 cm, erect or ascending, some-what compressed;

lower internodes 1.5-2 mm thick.

10-150 cm, herbaceous, glabrous, branching both at and above the base.

conspicuously keeled, margins often with long, papillose-based hairs, particularly near the throat;

ligules 0.2-1 mm, truncate, erose;

blades 15-40 cm long, 3-7 mm wide, with prominent, white midveins, margins and/or adaxial surfaces often with basal papillose-based hairs.

open;

ligules membranous, ciliate.

with 4-10(17) branches, often with 1 branch attached as much as 3 cm below the terminal cluster;

branches (3.5)7-16 cm long, 3-5.5 mm wide, linear.

terminal, panicles of (1)2-20 non-disarticulating, spikelike branches, exceeding the upper leaves;

branches 1-17 cm, all or most in a digitate cluster, sometimes 1(2) branch(es) attached immediately below the terminal whorl, axes flattened, terminating in a functional spikelet.

4-7 mm long, 2-3 mm wide, with 5-7 florets, obliquely attached to the branch axes.

3.5-11 mm, laterally compressed, with 2-15 bisexual florets;

disarticulation above the glumes and between the florets (E. coracana not disarticulating).

unequal, shorter than the lower lemmas;

lower glumes 1-3-veined;

upper glumes 3-5(7)-veined;

lemmas 3-veined, glabrous, keeled, apices entire, neither mucronate nor awned;

paleas sometimes with winged keels;

anthers 3, 0.5-1 mm;

ovaries glabrous.

1.1-2.3 mm, 1-veined;

upper glumes 2-2.9 mm;

lemmas 2.4-4 mm;

paleas with narrowly winged keels.

modified caryopses, pericarp thin, separating from the seed at an early stage in its development;

seeds usually obtusely trigonous, the surfaces ornamented, x = 8, 9, 10.

ovoid, rugulose and obliquely striate, usually not exposed at maturity.

= 18.