Description: Caespitose perennials.
Leaves with ligule membranous; blade flat to involute.
Spikelets solitary, pedicellate, bisexual, 1-flowered with the florets disarticulating above the glumes and the rachilla not produced beyond the floret, borne in open or contracted panicles. Glumes equal or slightly unequal, obtuse to acute or acuminate, membranous to firm, usually 3–5-nerved. Lemma shorter than to about as long as the glumes, 3–5-nerved, with a short, blunt, oblique callus, terminally or subterminally awned with the awn deciduous, slender, glabrous. Palea shorter than to subequalling the lemma and embraced by its margins, 2-nerved. Stamens 3. Lodicules 2 or 3, hyaline, rather large.
Distribution and occurrence: World: c. 24 species, mostly in temperate & subtropical regions of Northern Hemisphere. Australia: 1 species (naturalized).
Text by S. W. L. Jacobs & J. Everett
Taxon concept:
| One species in NSW: Piptatherum miliacea |
|
