Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Perennials with rhizomes or stolons.

Stems: culms compressed or terete (cylindrical), nodose and leafy.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. 2-ranked, primarily basal. Blades vertically flattened (oriented parallel to culm) or terete (cylindrical), sometimes transversely septate. Margins entire. Veins parallel. Sheaths elongated. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescences paniculate, consisting of 1 to several partial panicles, with often fascicled, flexuous or zigzag branches, bracts with short blades, sheathing; spikelets ovoid to subturbinate, rachilla continuous. glumes 1to few, 2-ranked, the lower 1–4 empty and smaller than the middle flower–bearing glume, the distal 1–2 glumes much–reduced, staminate or empty. Flowers bisexual (perfect) or staminate. Perianth of 0–6 bristles. Corolla (petals) absent. Stamens (1–)3. Ovary superior, 3-carpellate; style continuous with ovary, base persistent, pyramidal, often pubescent; stigmas 3.

Fruit: Achenes usually ovoid or ellipsoid; trigonous to subterete; sessile or stipitate. Seeds 1; seed coat thin; free from pericarp; embryo basal; endosperm abundant.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: