Flora of New Zealand Series

Usually wiry, often bamboo-like perennials, or less frequently annuals. Ligule membranous. Leaf-blade setaceous to linear, usually convolute or folded. Inflorescence an open or contracted panicle. Spikelets 1-flowered, all ⚥, terete to laterally compressed, or sometimes dorsally compressed; disarticulation above glumes; rachilla not prolonged. Glumes 2, persistent, usually > floret, hyaline to membranous, 1-7-nerved, acute to long-acuminate. Lemma (3)-5-9-nerved, membranous to crustaceous, often strongly indurate in fruit, terete to lenticular, usually enclosing palea; awn mostly once or twice geniculate, terminal from bidenticulate or entire lemma-tip. Palea usually ≈ lemma, hyaline to membranous, usually without keels, nerves 2 or 0, usually acute. Lodicules (2)-3. Stamens (1)-3. Ovary glabrous; styles 2, plumose. Caryopsis usually fusiform; embryo small; hilum linear, ½-≈ caryopsis, very rarely elliptic and < ½ caryopsis.

The disposition of genera as set out by Jacobs, S. W. L. and Everett, J. Telopea 6: 579-595 (1996) for Australia is accepted here; it follows from Barkworth, M. E. and Everett, J. in Soderstrom, T. R. et al. (Eds) Grass Systematics and Evolution 251-264 (1987) and realigns taxa discussed for New Zealand by Jacobs, S. W. L. et al. N.Z. J. Bot. 27: 569-582 (1989).