Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Cespitose perennials.

Stems: Culms erect or decumbent to spreading.

Roots: Fibrous root system.

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades flat, non–auriculate. Margins entire. Veins parallel. Sheaths rounded, open; ligule membranous. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescence a terminal panicle with spicate branches, these sometimes branched, upper pedicels and upper rachis joints with a central groove or membranous area; spikelets in pairs of 1 sessile and 1 pedicellate, pedicellate spikelet staminate or sterile, but relatively well–developed, awnless, sessile spikelet fertile, spikelets disarticulating as a unit consisting of the spikelet pair and a section of the rachis; glumes large, firm or hard, first glume dorsally flattened, clasping or enclosing second glume, some with a depressed glandular pit in upper portion, second glume with a median keel; lemmas of both florets membranous, hyaline, lemma of fertile floret more or less triangular in outline, entire or bifid, bearing a bent or twisted awn from apex or between apical lobes; palea of fertile floret small or absent, hyaline. Stamens 3. Ovary superior.

Fruit: Caryopsis ellipsoid.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

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