Leersia

Perennial, rarely annual; tufted, often with creeping rhizomes or stoloniferous; culm slender, often geniculate and ascending. Leaf blade narrow, expanded, folded or rolled; ligule an unfringed membrane. Inflorescence a panicle, open or contracted; spikelets solitary, secund, shortly pedicelled. Spikelet unconventional and hard to interpret, strongly laterally compressed; glumes 0 or reduced to a very obscure rim at tip of pedicel. Floret 1; lemma coriaceous, not becoming indurated, boat-shaped, almost plano-convex in outline, keels rigidly ciliate, 3-5-nerved, shortly acuminate or awned; palea narrow, 3-nerved, subcartilaginous except on hyaline margins, grooved along outer nerves with keel rigidly ciliate, tightly clasped by inflexed margins of lemma. Lodicules 2, fleshy, finely nerved. Stamens (1-)6. Ovary ellipsoid, glabrous; styles distinct, plumose. x= 12 (polyploidy).