Flora of North America species comparison

50-500+ cm tall, 1-5 cm thick, sometimes branching above the base;

nodes glabrous or appressed pubescent;

internodes glabrous.

50-500+ cm;

internodes solid.

not aromatic, basal and cauline;

auricles absent;

ligules membranous and ciliate or of hairs;

blades usually flat.

5-60 cm long, 3-30 cm wide, open or contracted, primary branches compound, terminating in rames with 2-7 spikelet pairs;

disarticulation usually not occurring or tardy.

terminal, panicles with evident rachises;

primary branches whorled, compound, the ultimate units rames;

rames with most spikelets in heterogamous sessile-pedicellate spikelet pairs, terminal spikelet unit on each rame usually a triplet of 1 sessile and 2 pedicellate spikelets, rame axes without a translucent median line;

disarticulation in the rames below the sessile spikelets, sometimes also below the pedicellate spikelets (cultivated taxa not or only tardily disarticulating).

often exposed at maturity.

1-2.6 mm.

slender, neither appressed nor fused to the rame axes.

1-4 mm;

blades 5-100 cm long, 5-100 mm wide, sometimes glabrous.

spikelets bisexual, 3-9 mm, lanceolate to ovate;

calluses blunt;

glumes coriaceous to membranous, glabrous, densely hirsute, or pubescent, keels usually winged;

upper lemmas unawned or with a geniculate, twisted, 5-30 mm awn;

anthers 2-2.8 mm.

spikelets dorsally compressed, calluses blunt or pointed;

lower glumes dorsally compressed and rounded basally, 2-keeled or winged distally, 5-15-veined, usually unawned;

upper glumes 2-keeled, sometimes awned;

lower florets reduced to hyaline lemmas;

upper florets pistillate or bisexual, lemmas hyaline, sometimes awned.

spikelets 3-6 mm, usually shorter than the sessile spikelets, staminate or sterile.

spikelets staminate or sterile, well-developed, often subequal to the sessile spikelets in size, x = 10.

= 20, 40.