Tripsacum L.

Monoecious, the staminate and pistillate spikelets in the same inflorescence; staminate spikelets 2-flowered, in pairs at the nodes of a continuous rachis, one sessile, the other subsessile or pedicellate; glumes membranaceous, equal, many-nerved, the first 2-keeled, the margins rather sharply inflexed; pistillate spikelets solitary on opposite sides on the lower part of the same rachis, sunken in the thick-ened, hardened disarticulating segments, composed of 1 fertile floret and a sterile lemma; first glume coriaceous, rounded, the margins nearly enclosing the spikelet, sterile lemma, fertile lemma, and palea hyaline, each successively smaller.