Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Perennials, culms tufted, up to 15 dm tall.

Stems: Culms erect, stout, glabrous.

Roots: Roots fibrous.

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades 20-30 cm long, 3-5 mm wide. Apex attenuate to an involute point. Upper surfaces scabrous; lower surfaces smooth, base usually involute. Veins parallel. Sheaths shorter than internodes, glabrous; ligule membranous, 1-2 mm long, margins lacerate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Panicles open, erect, 30-40 cm long, the branches spreading or drooping, slender, 8-15 cm long, branching above middle, fasciculate, with ca. 5 branches in lower fascicles, the axis terete (cylindrical) and smooth in lower part, angled and scabrous in upper part; spikelets 3-5 per branch, pedicels 5-10 mm long, rachilla appressed-hispidulous; glumes narrow, glabrous, keels scabrous near apex, first glume 3-5 mm long, 1-nerved, second glume 6-7 mm long, 3-nerved. Lemmas narrow, 7-9 mm long, 1-1.5 mm wide, faintly 5-nerved, rounded on the back, scabrous, apex acuminate or prolonged into an awn ca. 1 mm long; palea as long as lemma and closely fitting to edges of lemma, scabrous.

Fruit: Caryopsis reddish brown; oblong to ellipsoid; strongly dorsally compressed; 4-5 mm long.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

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