Perennial, culms 10–90 cm. high, erect or ascending, wiry.. Leaf-blades cauline or sometimes forming a compact cushion, 1–15 cm. long, 1–3 mm. wide, glaucous, glabrous or densely puberulous, with or without tubercle-based hairs, bluntly acute to finely acuminate; basal sheaths not laterally compressed.. Panicle ovate, 3–7 cm. long, with delicate capillary branches fulvously bearded at the tip.. Sessile spikelet narrowly oblong, with a shortly pungent callus 1.5–2 mm. long; lower glume 4–6 mm. long, laterally compressed to a rounded keel, sparsely pilose at the tip; upper glume glabrous or sparsely ciliate on the keel, bearing a plumose awn 7–15 mm. long; upper lemma emarginate or entire, with a puberulous awn 2–3 cm. long.. Pedicelled spikelet 4–7 mm. long, pallid or purplish, the lower and often also the upper glume bearing a plumose awn up to 15 mm. long, this sometimes glabrous near the tip; pedicels fulvously or pallidly villous, 1/3–1/2 as long as the sessile spikelet.. Fig. 171.
Home