Description: Small tufted annuals or perennials; culms simple, slender, numerous.
Leaves with ligule a short, membranous, hairy rim, orifice bearded with silky white hairs; blade flat or convolute, short, mostly basal, glabrous or hairy.
Inflorescence a simple terminal, solitary spike, erect or curved. Spikelets laterally flattened, appressed, borne with edges of glumes towards the rachis; rachilla disarticulating above the glumes and between the lemmas; florets numerous, bisexual, or the uppermost male. Glumes unequal, narrow, membranous, 1–3-nerved. Lemmas 3-nerved, membranous, shortly bilobed, the central nerve projecting as a fine mucro or awn; callus short, bearded; palea 2-toothed, 2-nerved, shortly ciliolate.
Distribution and occurrence: World: c. 20 species, mostly from Africa, Asia, Australia & New Zealand. Australia: 1 species (native).
Derivation: from the Greek words for ‘three’ and ‘beard’.
Text by Jacobs, S.W.L., Whalley, R.D.B. & Wheeler, D.J.B.
Taxon concept: Grasses of New South Wales, Fourth Edition (2008).
| One species in NSW: Tripogon loliiformis |
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