Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Annuals or perennials.

Stems: Plants ± with short creeping rhizomes, culms erect, glabrous and smooth.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades linear, flat. Surfaces glabrous, smooth to somewhat scabrous. Margins entire. Sheaths closed only near base, glabrous; ligule membranous. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescences paniculate, open to loosely contracted, branched; spikelets several–flowered, pendulous, often cordate, strongly laterally compressed, florets crowded and spreading horizontally, rachilla disarticulating above glumes and between florets; glumes broad, chartaceous, margins scarious, awnless; lemmas ovate, inflated, horizontally spreading and closely imbricate, 5–11–nerved, margins scarious, apex acute, awnless, base cordate; palea shorter than or equal to lemma, lanceolate to ovate, concave, nerves short-ciliate. Stamens 1–3. Ovary superior.

Fruit: Caryopsis ventrally flattened; lanceolate to ovate.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Commonly inhabiting open sites.

Elevation Range: