Lophacme

Perennial, tufted, rhizomatous, basal sheaths fibrous. Leaf blade expanded or rolled, almost setaceous; ligule a fringed membrane. Inflorescence 2-8 slender, spike-like racemes, digitate or subdigitate; spikelets solitary, subsessile or shortly pedicelled, somewhat distant on rachis. Spikelet laterally compressed, disarticulating above glumes and between florets; glumes +/- equal or unequal, shorter to as long as spikelet, linear, similar, membranous, glabrous, 1-nerved, keeled, awnless. Florets 2-many, dissimilar; lower florets 1-3 bisexual or second floret sometimes male only; upper florets 1-5 sterile, reduced to awns, forming a tuft which remains attached to upper fertile floret; bisexual lemma linear, less firm than glumes, thinly membranous, finely hairy, 3-nerved, dorsally keeled, shortly 2-lobed, central awn from between lobes; awn slender, straight, longer than body of lemma; callus short, pointed, minutely hairy; palea slightly shorter than lemma, linear, acute, deeply concave on back, 2-keeled, subhyaline. Lodicules 2, minute, hyaline, glabrous. Stamens 3. Ovary glabrous; styles distinct, short, loosely plumose above. Caryopsis fusiform.