Description: Annuals or perennials; culms erect or decumbent.
Leaves with ligule short, truncate or jagged; blade flat.
Inflorescence a single, many-flowered, spike-like raceme. Spikelets usually solitary on short pedicels, with 1 side against the flattened, hollowed or winged rachis; rachilla disarticulating above the glumes and between the lemmas; florets 7–15 , bisexual. Glumes stiff, rounded on the back, unequal. Lemmas rounded on the back, 7-nerved, with a terminal awn. Paleas oblong, shorter than the lemma, conspicuously ciliate.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 16 spp., temp. regions of N Hemi. Aust.: 2 spp. (naturalized), N.S.W., Vic., Tas., S.A., W.A.
Text by S. W. L. Jacobs & S. M. Hastings
Taxon concept:
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