RLEM 610 grass taxonomy aristida

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Aristida oligantha

ARISTIDA L. Threeawn Plants hermaphroditic, caespitose, annual or perennial. Culms erect or ascending or geniculate or decumbent, glabrous or hairy; internodes solid or hollow, terete. Leaves basal or basal and cauline, not distinctly distichous; sheaths terete, margins open; auricles absent; ligules a line of hairs or a ciliate membrane; blades flat or involute, not pungent, linear, stiff or lax. Panicles or racemes, open or narrow or contracted, primary branches reflexed or spreading or ascending or appressed; terminating in a spikelet. Spikelets solitary, terete or laterally compressed, awned, sessile or subsessile or pedicellate; disarticulation above glumes; floret 1, callus hairy (sharp pointed); reduced floret absent; glumes 1-3-viened, nearly equal or very unequal, longer than floret or the first glume much shorter, glabrous or scabrous; lemmas 3-veined, coriaceous or indurate, apex tapering to a column bearing or branching into 3-awns; awns equal in length or the lateral awns shorter than the central one or the lateral awns greatly reduced relative to the central awn; paleas veinless or 1-2-veined, awnless, usually glabrous. Stamens 1-3; anthers yellow to tan. Caryopses enclosed in the lemmas, cylindrical. Base chromosome number x=11. A genus of about 200 species from arid or warm to hot habitats.