Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Perennials grass.

Stems: Rhizomes short, forming a thickened culm base, culms solid, flattened, smooth, striate, tufted, the tufts often extensive, cascading from banks in long masses up to 4 m long, the old culms naked and rushlike, bearing bladeless sheaths internodes up to 65 cm long.

Roots: Roots fibrous.

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades flat, lax, usually less than 10 cm long, 2-3 mm wide. Upper surfaces scabrous; lower surfaces glabrous, deciduous from older basal sheaths. Veins parallel. Sheaths glabrous, closed to the mouth, shorter than the internodes; ligule 2-3 mm long, membranous, margins dentate to erose, completely encircling the culm except where ruptured by the splitting of the sheath. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Panicles ovoid, usually less than 5 cm long, primary branches 2-3 cm long, appressed to ascending; spikelets relatively few per panicle branch, laterally compressed, 2-5-flowered, 4-7 mm long, rachilla elongate, florets up to 1 mm apart, glabrous to moderately hispid; glumes slightly unequal, narrow, glabrous, 3-nerved, apex acuminate, second glume ca. 4 mm long. Lemmas narrow, 4-5 mm long, keel and marginal nerves scabrous, or scabrous toward base, cobwebby hairs absent, intermediate nerves prominent; palea nearly as long as lemma, keels scabrous-ciliate, apex bifid.

Fruit: Caryopsis reddish brown; ovoid; ca. 0.6 mm long.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Rare on wet; shady banks and along ridges.

Elevation Range: ca. 1,000–1,300 m.