Flora of North America species comparison

20-100 cm, not swollen at the base.

4-230 cm tall, erect or decumbent, sometimes swollen at the base, not branching above the base.

more or less evenly distributed, glabrous;

sheaths open for most of their length, uppermost sheaths often somewhat inflated;

auricles absent;

ligules hyaline, glabrous, truncate to acuminate, entire or lacerate;

blades usually flat, sometimes revolute.

3-9 cm long, about 2 cm wide, dense, obovoid to clavate, tapering at the base, rounded to truncate at the top;

branches with groups of 5-6 usually staminate, rarely sterile spikelets clustered around a terminal pistillate or bisexual spikelet;

pedicels hispid;

disarticulation beneath the spikelet clusters.

terminal panicles, sometimes spikelike, ovoid to cylindrical, dense, sometimes interrupted, with 10-200 spikelets borne singly or in clusters, spikelets homogamous in species with single spikelets, heterogamous in species with spikelets in clusters, lower spikelets in the clusters usually staminate, rarely sterile, terminal spikelets bisexual or pistillate.

heterogamous, with 3 florets, lower 2 florets sterile and highly reduced, terminal floret usually staminate, pistillate, or bisexual, rarely sterile.

pedicellate, laterally compressed, with 1-3(4) florets, the terminal or only floret usually sexual, lower floret(s), if present, sterile;

disarticulation above the glumes, beneath the sterile florets in species with solitary spikelets, in species with clustered spikelets usually at the base of the spikelet clusters, sometimes beneath the bisexual or pistillate spikelets.

of staminate or sterile spikelets varying, those at the base of the panicle reduced to knobs of tissue terminating the pedicels, those higher up often clavate, those near the top of the panicle similar to the glumes of the sexual spikelets but somewhat narrower;

glumes of pistillate or bisexual spikelets 4-8 mm long, about 1 mm wide, keeled, keels winged, wings 0.2-0.4 mm wide, terminating below the apices and forming a single, prominent tooth, lateral veins conspicuous, apices acuminate to awned, awns about 0.5 mm;

sterile florets of all spikelets 0.2-0.4 mm, knoblike projections on the calluses of the terminal florets often with 1-2 hairs;

terminal florets of all spikelets 2.5-3.5 mm long, 0.8-1.5 mm wide, indurate, shiny, glabrous or with a few short hairs near the tip;

anthers 1.5-2.5 mm.

subequal, exceeding the florets, 1-5-veined, keeled, keels often conspicuously winged;

lower (sterile) florets reduced, varying from knoblike projections on the calluses of the bisexual florets to linear or lanceolate lemmas less than 3/4 as long as the bisexual florets;

terminal florets usually bisexual, in the lower spikelets of a spikelet cluster the terminal florets pistillate or staminate, rarely sterile;

lemmas of terminal florets coriaceous to indurate, shiny, glabrous or hairy, inconspicuously 5-veined, acute to acuminate or beaked, unawned;

paleas similar to the lemmas in length and texture, enclosed by the lemmas at maturity, 1-veined, mostly glabrous, veins shortly hairy;

lodicules absent or 2 and reduced;

anthers 3;

ovaries glabrous;

styles 2, plumose.

shorter than the lemmas, concealed at maturity, with a reticulate pericarp, falling free of the lemma and palea;

hila long-linear, x = 6, 7.

3-5 mm, truncate to acute;

blades 5-10(15) cm long, 2-5 mm wide.

= 14.