Flora of North America species comparison

(40)60-150(180) cm, erect or decumbent;

nodes 4-10, mostly concealed by the leaf sheaths, glabrous.

18-75 cm, often decumbent or geniculate;

nodes usually glabrous.

glabrous;

auricles about 0.5 mm;

ligules 0.5-1 mm, truncate;

blades 3-4 mm wide, flat, glabrous or hairy, abaxial surfaces less densely hairy and with shorter hairs than the adaxial surfaces, apices acute.

evenly distributed;

sheaths smooth or scabridulous, glabrous or hirsute, often reddish brown;

auricles 1.5-4 mm, brown or purplish black;

ligules to 1(2) mm, truncate, ciliolate;

blades (3)4-15(20) mm wide, usually firm, often ascending and somewhat involute, usually dull green, drying to grayish, adaxial surfaces usually smooth or scabridulous and glabrous, rarely sparsely hispid to villous.

6-30 cm long, 3-7 cm wide, usually nodding, sometimes pendent or almost erect, usually with 2(3) spikelets per node, occasionally to 5 at some nodes, rarely with 1 at some nodes but never throughout;

internodes (2)3-5(7) mm long, or 5-10 mm long towards the base, 0.2-0.35 mm thick at the thinnest sections, glabrous or with a few hairs below the spikelets.

5-12 cm long, 0.4-0.7 cm wide excluding the awns, erect, with 1 spikelet per node;

internodes 4-5.5 mm, edges ciliate.

12-20 mm excluding the awns, more or less divergent, with (2)3-5(7) florets, lowest florets functional;

disarticulation usually above the glumes and beneath each floret, rarely also below the glumes.

11-19 mm, appressed, with (3)4-5 florets;

rachillas hairy, hairs about 0.4 mm;

disarticulation above the glumes, beneath each floret.

usually equal, occasionally subequal, 11-40 mm including the awns, the basal 0-1 mm subterete and slightly indurate, glume bodies 6-13 mm long, 0.5-1.6 mm wide, linear-lanceolate to subsetaceous, entire, widening or parallel-sided above the base, 3-5-veined, glabrous to scabrous-ciliate, rarely villous on the veins, margins firm, awns (5)10-25(27) mm, straight to outcurving;

lemmas 8-15 mm, glabrous, scabrous, hispid, or uniformly villous with the hairs generally appressed, awns (10)15-40(50) mm, moderately to strongly outcurving, often contorted at the spike bases;

paleas 7-13 mm, acute, usually bidentate;

anthers 2-3.5 mm.

8-12 mm long, 1.2-2 mm wide, about 3/4 as long as to equaling the adjacent lemmas, narrowly ovate to obovate, often purplish, glabrous, sometimes scabrous, flat or equally keeled the full length, keels and other veins usually smooth, sometimes scabrous, 3(5)-veined, adaxial surfaces glabrous, margins usually unequal, the wider margin 0.3-1 mm wide, usually widest in the distal 1/3, apices acute to rounded, often awned, awns to 2 mm;

lemmas glabrous or pubescent, hairs flexible, all similar, apices usually awned, awns 0.5-3 mm, straight;

paleas subequal to the lemmas, tapering to the apices, apices about 0.4 mm wide;

anthers 0.7-1.3 mm.

May to July.

StH.

= 28, rarely 42.

= 28.