Flora of North America species comparison

10-150 cm, slender, wiry, erect at first, ultimately decumbent, sprawling, glabrous, often with purple dots and streaks, branching extensively at the base, rooting at the lower nodes.

weak, sprawling.

often shorter than the internodes, loose, glabrous, margins short-ciliate;

ligules 0.2-0.5 mm, membranous, erose, ciliate;

blades 5-20 cm long, 3-10 mm wide, thin, flat, glabrous on both surfaces, margins scabridulous, apices long-acuminate.

5-30 cm, nearly as wide as long;

branches few, capillary, with a few spikelets distally;

pedicels 0.5-10 mm.

open, diffuse, lax, with a few spikelets.

1.7-2.2 mm long, about 1 mm wide, ellipsoid or obovoid, glabrous, faintly veined, subacute or obtuse at the apices.

warty-tuberculate or verrucose, faintly veined.

0.3-0.8 mm, reduced, acute;

upper glumes and lower lemmas subequal or the glumes shorter, distinctly verrucose, with hemispheric warts;

upper florets 1.6-2 mm long, about 1 mm wide, grayish-brown, dull, minutely papillose, acute.

less than 1/5 as long as the spikelets, without veins;

upper glumes and lower lemmas subequal, 5-veined;

lower florets sterile;

lower paleas absent;

upper florets finely longitudinally rugose, papillose and with bicellular microhairs, often with a minute protuberance at the base of the paleas.

membranous, ciliate, very short.

= 9.

= 36.