Home
Annuals. Culms tufted, slender. Leaf blades linear, usually involute; ligule membranous. Inflorescence a contracted, narrow, somewhat 1-sided panicle. Spikelets laterally compressed, florets several to many with the uppermost reduced, widely spaced; rachilla scabrid or pubescent, disarticulating below each floret; glumes narrow, very unequal, persistent; lower glume small, sometimes minute, 0–1-veined; upper glume much longer, 1–3-veined; lemmas narrowly lanceolate, membranous becoming firm at maturity, rounded or occasionally keeled, faintly 3–5-veined, back smooth, scabrid or pubescent, margins inrolled over palea, apex narrowed into an awn; awn straight or curved, usually longer than lemma; callus short, glabrous or bearded; palea slightly shorter than lemma, keels ciliolate. Stamens 1–3. Ovary glabrous. Caryopsis narrow, tightly enclosed by lemma and palea; hilum linear.
Slender annuals, rarely perennials. Leaf-blades linear, flat, convolute or involute. Inflorescence a ± secund contracted or spike-like panicle. Spikelets 3–13-flowered, laterally compressed, borne upon short thickened pedicels; glumes often very unequal, narrow, the lower nerveless or 1-nerved, the upper 1–3-nerved, longer than the lower; lemmas subulate-lanceolate, rounded on the back with incurved margins, finely 5-nerved, becoming rigid, narrowed into a fine straight awn; paleas 2-keeled, narrow; stamens 1–3.
Similar to Festuca and only marginally distinct, but now customarily held at generic rank; most spp. annual and cleistogamous or nearly so, with most commonly only one, less often 2, rarely 3 anthers, these small, to ca 1.5 mm; grain linear-cylindric, tapering to both ends. 25, widespread, but especially Mediterranean.
