Description: Tufted decumbent annuals; culms few–many-noded.
Leaves with ligule membranous, translucent; blade folded in bud, flat or rolled, margins and upper nerves scabrous, smooth below.
Inflorescence a cylindrical spike, stiff, slender, erect or curved, disarticulating between spikelets.
Spikelets of 1 floret, bisexual, solitary, alternate, sessile in hollows in the rachis, falling attached to the joint. Glumes lanceolate-oblong, narrow, equal, as long as the spikelet, acute, hardened, 3–5 nerved, smooth, side by side and together covering the hollow in the rachis. Lemma lanceolate to ovate, slightly shorter than glumes, blunt, 3-nerved, back against rachis. Palea about as long as lemma, 2-nerved. Tends to grow in saline soils that are subject to periodic flooding.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 6 species, Europe, N. Africa, Mediterranean region, Asia. Australia: 2 species (naturalized), N.S.W., Vic., Tas, S.A., W.A.
Text by S. W. L. Jacobs & K. L. McClay
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Culms less than 10 cm high; spikes often curved; glumes longer than the lemma; anthers 1 mm long | Parapholis incurva |
| Culms more than 12 cm high; spikes straight; glumes about as long as the lemma; anthers 2–4 mm long | Parapholis strigosa |
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