Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Cespitose annuals 10–60 cm tall.

Stems: Culms branched, glabrous or puberulent, the nodes villous.

Roots: Roots fibrous.

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades 4-10 cm long, 0.2-0.5 cm wide. Surfaces glabrous or scaberulous, rarely villous above. Veins parallel. Sheaths glabrous; ligule a row of hairs 1-2 mm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Panicles 5-15 cm long, terminal and axillary, rachis scabrous and villous, branches appressed, scabrous to short-pilose; spikelets 3-4.5 mm long, acuminate, lower 1/2 hidden by the pubescence; glumes as long as spikelet, equal, 3-5-nerved, lower 2/3 densely villous with hairs 1-2 mm long, apex puberulent to pubescent, internode between glumes distinct, ca. 0.3 mm long. First floret sterile, first lemma 2.5-2.7 mm long, slightly shorter than glumes, 7-nerved, pubescent toward apex, first palea rudimentary, ca. 0.3 mm long, hyaline; second floret 1.8-2 mm long, oblong-elliptic, glossy, smooth, the palea enclosed only at the margins. Anthers white, 0.8-1.1 mm long.

Fruit: Fruit a caryopsis

Ploidy:

Habitat: Relatively uncommon in exposed; open areas.

Elevation Range: 0–200 m.