POACEAE  

Densely caespitose perennials. Leaves linear; sheath produced at mouth into narrow auricles; ligule scarious, adnate to sheath-auricles .Inflorescence composed of paired racemes, pairs each subtended by a spatheole and gathered into a scanty false panicle; racemes short, upper raceme borne on a very long raceme-base, its basal spikelets at

Annuals up to

Prostrate stoloniferous annuals forming loose mats; flowering culms ascending. Leaf blades flat; ligule a line of hairs. Inflorescence of digitate, 1-sided racemes. Spikelets 1-flowered with minute rhachilla-extension, strongly laterally compressed, sessile, alternate in 2 rows on a tough axis, disarticulating above glumes. Glumes subequal, thinly membranous, shorter than the floret, 1-nerved, upper one broader than lower one; lemma membranous, keeled, acute, long-awned. Caryopsis narrowly lanceolate, triquetrous.

Annuals with culms profusely branched from base, at first prostrate, finally ascending. Leaves: sheath margins glabrous or pilose; lamina glaucous, tapering to an acuminate point. Inflorescence a hemispherical to ovoid head, or a cylindric spiciform panicle, embraced below by 1 or 2 inflated bract-like leaf sheaths bearing a reduced lamina, or sometimes exserted. Spikelets 1-flowered, strongly laterally compressed and keeled, disarticulating below the floret, sometimes tardily so or rarely falling entire, awned or awnless. Glumes subequal or unequal, 1-nerved, membranous, equal to or shorter than lemma, acute or with an awn-point. Lemma 1-nerved, membranous, acute or with an awn-point. Palea 1- or 2-nerved. Caryopsis elliptic; pericarp free and sometimes swelling when wet.

Stoloniferous annuals, sometimes caespitose, erect or geniculately ascending. Leaves: sheaths strongly keeled; lamina flat, broadly obtuse at apex and with a reflexed mucro. Inflorescence of 1