Miscanthus

Perennial, tufted, often robust, sometimes rhizomatous. Leaf blade linear, expanded or whole blade terete; ligule an unfringed to a fringed membrane. Inflorescence a panicle, open or contracted, often large and plumose; rachis tough, internodes and pedicels slender and free; spikelets paired, unequally pedicelled, similar in form and function. Spikelet dorsiventrally compressed, falling with glumes, narrowly oblong to lanceolate, surrounded by an involucre of spreading hairs from callus; glumes +/- equal in size, as long as spikelet, very dissimilar, awnless; lower glume +/- flattened on back, 2-keeled with inflexed margins, nerves present between keels; upper glume 1-keeled. Florets 2, lower floret sterile, reduced to a hyaline lemma, awnless or sometimes mucronate; upper floret bisexual; lemma less firm than glumes, hyaline, entire or finely bidentate, awned or awnless; awn straight or geniculate, as long as to longer than body of lemma; callus very short, truncate, hairy with long, spreading hairs; palea minute. Lodicules 2, fleshy. Stamens 2 or 3. Caryopsis oblong to lanceolate. x= 7 (aneuploids, polyploidy).