Flora of North America species comparison

90-180 cm tall, 1.5-3 mm wide;

internodes glabrous or pubescent beneath the nodes.

50-300+ cm, erect, nodding or clambering, unbranched;

nodes densely pubescent, particularly in young plants.

usually glabrous, occasionally pubescent in young plants;

ligules 2.5-4(5.7) mm;

blades 20-50 cm long, (1.8)3-6 mm wide, scabrous, particularly on the adaxial surfaces.

not aromatic;

ligules membranous, glabrous or pubescent;

blades flat, involute, or folded.

15-40 cm, straight to slightly arching, secund, somewhat open;

nodes glabrous or almost so;

branches erect or nearly so.

terminal, secund or equilateral panicles with evident rachises and numerous branches, not subtended by modified leaves;

branches capillary, rebranching, with many rames, not subtended by modified leaves;

disarticulation in the rames, beneath the sessile spikelets.

6-8 mm long, 0.8-1.2 mm wide, lanceolate, dark brown to golden brown at maturity.

sessile, subtending a hairy pedicel (2 pedicels in the terminal spikelet units), dorsally compressed.

2-3 mm.

flattened.

4-7.5 mm, pubescent, sharply curved to recurved.

3-6.5 mm, slender, not fused to the rame axes; pedicellate spikelets absent, x = 10.

1-1.2 mm, blunt, densely bearded;

lower glumes 6-7.5 mm, pubescent, truncate, 7-9-veined;

upper glumes 6.5-8 mm, glabrous, acuminate, 5-veined;

awns 30-40 mm, 4-5 times longer than the spikelets, twice-geniculate, dark brown;

anthers 2.5-4.5 mm.

blunt or sharp;

glumes coriaceous;

lower glumes pubescent, 5-9-veined, acute;

upper glumes slightly longer, usually glabrous, 5-veined, truncate;

lower florets reduced to hyaline lemmas;

upper florets bisexual, lemmas hyaline, bifid, awned from the sinuses;

awns usually once- or twice-geniculate, often spirally twisted, shortly strigose, brownish;

anthers 3;

ovaries glabrous.

= 20.