Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Perennial.

Stems: Culms tufted, 3–4 dm tall, glabrous.

Roots: Fibrous root system.

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades delicate, involute, usually almost capillary often exceeding the panicles, 20–30 cm long. Surfaces usually glabrous, occasionally Upper surfaces scabrous. Margins entire. Veins parallel. Sheaths 1–2 cm long, striate, glabrous or hispidulous, lower ones chartaceous; ligule ca. 1 mm long, membranous. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in panicles silvery brown to yellowish brown, compact. Spikelike, globose, 3–6 cm long, rachis villous; spikelets 1–3–flowered, 6–7 mm long, rachilla sparsely villous; glumes unequal, translucent except on the nerves, keeled, scabrous on keel but otherwise glabrous, first glume narrow, 3–3.7 mm long, 0.3–0.5 mm wide from keel to margin, 1–nerved, apex acuminate, second glume 4.5–5 mm long, 0.7–1 mm wide from keel to margin, 3–nerved, apex acute; lemmas 4–6 mm long, scaberulous, with a delicate, straight dorsal awn 1–2 mm long borne 0.7–1.5 mm below the minutely bifid apex; palea ca. 3 mm long, glossy, keel scaberulous. Stamens 3. Ovary superior.

Fruit: Caryopsis pale brown; fusiform; slightly laterally compressed; 1.6–2 mm long.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Occurring on open; grassy slopes and steep ridges and slopes in dry forest.

Elevation Range: 730–1,000 m.