Ehrharta

Annual or perennial, sometimes dwarf shrubs, rhizomatous or stoloniferous, sometimes with a bulb or corm, tufted or decumbent. Leafblade linear to linear-lanceolate, expanded, folded or rolled, rarely much reduced; ligule a fringed or unfringed membrane, or a fringe of hairs. Inflorescence a panicle or reduced to a raceme with a few spikelets, or to a single spikelet, open or contracted, sometimes spike-like, rarely secund; spikelets solitary or sometimes clustered, pedicelled. Spikelet laterally to not noticeably compressed, disarticulating above glumes; glumes +/- equal to unequal, shorter to longer than spikelet, membranous, similar, lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, hairy or glabrous, 5-nerved, sometimes shortly mucronate, awnless. Florets 3; lower 2 florets sterile, reduced to lemmas, usually of similar size and differing from smaller bisexual lemma, occasionally first sterile lemma short and glume-like and second sterile lemma resembling bisexual lemma; sterile lemmas stiffly membranous, usually scabrid, one or both transversely rugose, tuberculate or smooth, hairy or glabrous, awnless or mucronate or awned from back or tapering into awn; awn longer or shorter than lemma body, sometimes bases of second sterile lemma and bisexual lemma coming together in a hinge-like joint resembling an earlobe, which may have a membranous appendage; uppermost floret bisexual; lemma firmer than glumes, smaller and more laterally compressed than sterile lemmas, 5-7-nerved, usually glabrous, rarely long-villous, sometimes mucronate, awnless; callus 0; palea linear or boat-shaped, almost as long as lemma, keeled, finely 2-nerved. Lodicules 2, large and flat, usually ovate or 2-lobed. Stamens 6 (5, 4, 3 or 1). Ovary obovoid; styles free, plumose or brush-like above. Caryopsis ellipsoid. x= 12 (polyploidy).