Home
Perennial or annual, sometimes with scaly rhizomes. Leaf blades usually linear; ligule very short, membranous, a dense fringe of long hairs behind at base of blade. Panicle open or contracted, usually with simple racemelike primary branches; central axis smooth, scabrid or hispid on angles; spikelets paired; pedicels unequal, briefly connate. Spikelets with 2 florets, lanceolate to ovate, gaping, often purplish; lower floret staminate or barren, upper floret bisexual; rachilla disarticulating between florets; glumes unequal, upper as long as spikelet, often caudate, lower shorter, acute to caudate; lower lemma similar in texture to upper glume, often persistent, smooth, 3–5-veined, awnless, its palea hyaline; upper lemma terete, smaller than the lower, firmer in texture, scaberulous, apex entire or 2-toothed, often awned, rarely awnless, occasionally lateral teeth also awned; awn usually geniculate with brown twisted column, sometimes caducous; palea margins sometimes auriculate; callus short, rounded, bearded. x = 7.
Spikelets short-pedicelled in rather dense contracted panicles; glumes acumi-nate, the first 3-to 5-nerved, the second 5-nerved, much longer than the first; sterile lemma acute, 3-to 5-nerved, a little shorter to a little longer than the first glume, containing a well-developed palea; fertile floret much shorter than the sterile lemma, with a short bearded callus and a terminal geniculate awn. Slender to coarse perennials with narrow blades and small to large contracted panicles.
Superior lemma scaberulous, entire to bilobed, with or without a straight or geniculate awn; callus short, rounded; palea wingless, sometimes the margins auriculate below.
Panicle open or contracted, often with simple raceme-like primary branches, the spikelets usually paired.
Spikelets purplish, disarticulating beneath superior floret.
Inferior lemma 3–7 nerved.
Hilum punctiform.
