Spikelets dimorphic; aerial spikelets in narrow terminal panicles, with a single perfect but often sterile terminal fl and a lateral floret represented only by a glume-like sterile lemma; first glume short or obsolete; second glume and sterile lemma subequal, about as long as the cartilaginous second lemma; fertile lemma with scattered short hairs; subterranean spikelets plump, fusiform, fertile, solitary at the end of a slender elongate branch, the first glume lacking, the second glume and sterile lemma several-veined, equaling the indurate fertile lemma; annual or perennial grasses with relatively short lvs and ciliate ligule. 2, the other in se. U.S.