Home
Annuals or perennials. Leaf blades linear, flat; ligule membranous. Inflorescence condensed, a narrowly spikelike or capitate panicle, ± 1-sided, bearing paired dimorphic spikelets, the outer of each pair sterile and covering a fertile spikelet. Fertile spikelet with (1–)2–5 florets, laterally compressed, disarticulating above glumes and between florets; glumes subequal, narrow, thin, acute; lemmas leathery, rounded on back, 5-veined, scabrid upward, apex acute, narrowly obtuse or bidenticulate, mucronate or awned. Sterile spikelet flattened, reduced to distichously pectinate glumes and sterile empty lemmas, persistent on panicle. Caryopsis elliptic or oblong, adherent to palea. x = 7.
Spikelets dimorphic, the sterile and fertile paired; sterile spikelets consisting of 2 glumes and several narrow, scabrous, acuminate lemmas on a continuous rachilla, borne in front of the fertile spikelets and nearly covering them; fertile spikelets 2–4-fld, the rachilla disarticulating; glumes narrow, unequal; lemmas broader, rounded on the back, scabrous, awn-tipped; lvs narrow; spikelets densely crowded in a spike-like or capitate panicle. 4, Europe and Medit. reg.
