Lolium

Annual or perennial (usually short-lived), tufted or culms solitary, sometimes rooting from nodes. Leaf blade linear, expanded, rolled or folded; ligule an unfringed membrane. Inflorescence a bilateral spike with spikelets sunk and lying edgeways in partial cavities on alternate sides of central axis; spikelets solitary, sessile. Spikelet laterally compressed, disarticulating above glumes; glumes unequal; lower glume absent except in terminal spikelet, rarely present and then much reduced; upper glume facing outwards, membranous, shorter than to as long as spikelet, lanceolate or linear-lanceolate, sometimes turgid in fruit, obtuse or subacute, 3-7-nerved, glabrous. Florets 2-22, bisexual or uppermost floret reduced and sterile; lemma less firm to firmer in texture to glumes, coriaceous, lanceolate or elliptic, rounded dorsally, 5-7-nerved, glabrous, acute to obtuse or awned; awn straight; palea equalling or subequalling body of lemma, somewhat thinner in texture, lanceolate, lanceolate-elliptic or lanceolate-oblong, 2-keeled. Lodicules 2, lanceolate with a lateral tooth. Stamens 3. Ovary truncate, glabrous; styles distinct, plumose. x= 7 (polyploidy).