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PAPPOPHORUM Schreb. Pappusgrass
Plants hermaphroditic, caespitose, perennial. Culms erect or ascending or geniculate, glabrous; internodes solid, terete.
Leaves basal and cauline, not conspicuously distichous; sheaths terete, margins open; auricles absent; ligules a line of hairs;
blades flat or folded or involute, not pungent, not attenuate. Panicles open or contracted (ours tight to
loose); primary branches ascending or appressed, terminating in a spikelet. Cleistogamous spikelets present or absent in basal
sheaths (highly modified). Spikelets solitary, laterally compressed or dorsiventrally compressed, awned,
pedicellate, pedicels without glands; disarticulation above glumes; florets 4-5, callus hairy, reduced florets (2)
above; glumes 1-veined (acute), nearly equal, shorter than or equaling first floret, glabrous; lemmas 11-15-veined,
coriaceous, apex dissected into 11-17 awns of unequal length, awn glabrous or scabrous to hairy; paleas
2-veined (longer than lemma body), awnless or mucronate, scabrous to hairy. Stamens 3; anthers brown. Caryopses elliptic,
dorsiventrally compressed. Base chromosome number x=10.
A genus of about eight species in North and South America. Our taxa are adapted to open, xeric habitats in
grasslands or shrublands.
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