Lachnagrostis Trin.

Tufted, sometimes short-lived perennials, or annuals; branching intra- or extravaginal. Leaf-sheath rounded. Ligule membranous. Leaf-blade flat, or folded with inrolled margins. Culm erect or geniculately ascending, fragile at maturity; nodes glabrous. Inflorescence a lax, often delicately branched panicle; at maturity completely detached from the plant together with a fragment of the uppermost culm internode, or, in annual plants, soon withering and persisting. Spikelets small, 1- or occasionally 2-flowered, laterally compressed; disarticulation above glumes; rachilla often prolonged, tipped with soft hairs and almost equalling the palea, or prolongation minute and glabrous. Glumes ± equal and equalling the spikelet, ovate-elliptic to lanceolate, acute, membranous, often shining, 1–(3)-nerved, lateral nerves, if present, very short; keel ± scabrid. Lemma < and thinner in texture than glumes, rarely () ≈ glumes and firmer, elliptic-oblong, truncate, rounded, (3)–5-nerved, often denticulate and with lateral nerves minutely excurrent, usually with dense or sparse, soft, fine hairs, or sometimes glabrous, rarely (L. tenuis) finely scabrid; awn, finely scabrid, geniculate or straight, ± middorsal or very short and subapical, rarely 0. Palea from ½ to ≈ lemma, hyaline, keels 2, usually faint, close together at centre. Callus minute, blunt, with short, soft hairs, to ½ or rarely to ⅔ length of lemma, sometimes 0. Lodicules 2, linear to lanceolate, hyaline, glabrous. Stamens 3; anthers not penicillate. Ovary glabrous; styles distinct, free to base, short; stigmas 2, plumose. Caryopsis fusiform; embryo small; endosperm doughy or dry. Chasmogamous (N.Z. spp.). Fig. 9.

[From: Edgar and Connor (2000) Flora of New Zealand. Volume 5 (second printing).]