Description: Tufted annuals; culms slender, erect, smooth.
Leaves with ligule membranous, long; blade flat, thin, narrow, margins scabrous.
Inflorescence a spike-like panicle.
Spikelets pedicellate, densely overlapping, laterally compressed, 1 bisexual floret, rachilla disarticulating above the glumes and produced as a feathery bristle. Glumes unequal, narrow, firmly membranous, 1-nerved, keeled, acute or subulate. Lemma shorter than the glumes, broad, translucent, hairy, truncate, toothed, faintly 5-nerved; awned below the apex; awn slender, geniculate. Palea subequal to the lemma, narrow, 2-keeled.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 3 species, Africa & Mediterranean region. Australia: 1 species (naturalized).
Text by S. W. L. Jacobs & K. L. McClay
Taxon concept:
| One species in NSW: Gastridium phleoides |
|
