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.

erect or decumbent, sometimes succulent or robust.

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.

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

ovoid, ellipsoid, or obovoid, glabrous, pilose, or tuberculate.

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.

1/5 - 4/5 as long as the spikelets, usually 3-veined;

upper glumes and lower lemmas usually 5-veined (rarely 7- or 9-veined);

lower florets sterile or staminate;

lower paleas present or absent;

upper florets sometimes stipitate, indurate to membranous, smooth and shiny, or rugose, or finely pubescent, or with paired glands, x = 9 or 10, with some polyploids.

membranous, membranous and ciliate, or lacerate;

blades with the vascular bundles surrounded by 2 thick-walled sheaths, outer sheaths parenchymatous, chloroplasts few and unspecialized or absent.

C3.

= 36.