Parapholis

Annual, tufted, erect to prostrate. Leaf blade linear, expanded or rolled, apex acute; ligule an unfringed membrane. Inflorescence a single, slender, +/- curved, rigid, cylindrical spike; spikelets sunk in and closely pressed to rachis, alternating on opposite sides of rachis; spikelets solitary, sessile. Spikelet +/- laterally compressed, falling with glumes and internodes of rachis at maturity; glumes +/- equal, displaced side by side, similar, as long as spikelet, narrow, acute, glabrous, 3-5-nerved, thick and rigid, awnless. Floret 1, bisexual; lemma almost as long as glumes, less firm in texture than glumes, thinly membranous, lanceolate to narrowly ovate, 3-nerved, lateral nerves short, awnless; palea almost as long as lemma, 2-nerved, keels wingless. Lodicules 2. Stamens 3. Ovary glabrous, truncate; styles obsolete, plumose. Caryopsis narrowly ellipsoid. x= 7, 9, 19 (polyploidy).