Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Perennial herbs.

Stems: Culms robust, 30–200 cm tall, swollen at nodes, internodes short, scabrous below panicle.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades flat or folded, 20–40 cm long, 5–25 mm wide. Upper surfaces scabrous; lower surfaces glabrous, midrib prominent. Margins entire. Veins parallel. Sheaths compressed keeled, much longer than internodes, glabrous; ligule membranous, fimbriate, 1–1.2 mm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescence composed of racemes 5–10 cm long, the axis densely puberulent. burs cylindrical to lanceoloid, somewhat reflexed at maturity, fusiform, 8–18 mm long, bur receptacle narrow in lower part, expanding above, 3–4 mm long, densely pubescent, outer series of bristles numerous, somewhat spreading, 2–3 mm long, retrorsely scabrous, the larger ones tomentulose at base, body of bur cleft ⅓–1⁄2 its length, lobes erect, appressed, forming an irregular beak, densely tomentose near middle, apex retrorsely scabrous; spikelets 1 per bur; glumes unequal, scaberulous, first glume 2–3 mm long, 5–7–nerved, awn–tipped; sterile lemma 5–6 mm long, scaberulous, 5–7–nerved, awn–tipped; sterile palea indistinctly 3–nerved, slightly shorter than lemma, scaberulous on margins and keel near apex; fertile lemma 5–6 mm long, indistinctly 5–nerved, apex acute; fertile palea 4–5 mm long, membranous, scaberulous at base, apex acute. Stamens 3. Ovary superior.

Fruit: Caryopsis ovoid; ca. 2.6 mm long; ca. 1 mm in diameter.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Occurring on sand and on dry rocky slopes and ridges in partial shade.

Elevation Range: 0–760 m.