Koeleria glomerata Kunth

Map

Inflorescence

Plant

Habit

Spikelets

Description

Perennials; culms densely tufted, 4-9 dm tall, erect, robust, glabrous or pubescent. Sheaths 4-12 cm long, usually loosely clasping the culm, especially the lower ones, glabrous to soft pubescent; ligule 3-5 mm long, membranous, usually lacerate; blades coriaceous, flat, or usually involute toward the stiff, subulate apex, 10-25 cm long, 2-4(-6) mm wide, glabrous or pubescent. Panicles erect, spike-like, sometimes interrupted or rather loose, 12-20 cm long, ca. 1 cm in diameter; spikelets 2-3-flowered, 4-6 mm long, compressed, scabrous to villous; glumes ca. 5 mm long, apex acuminate, first glume narrow, 0.7-1 mm wide from keel to margin, second glume twice as wide as first glume; lemmas 4-5 mm long, indistinctly 5-nerved, rather firm, somewhat keeled, usually dorsally awned from below the entire or slightly bifid apex, the awn usually bent, 2-5 mm long; palea 4-5 mm long, membranous, apex acuminate. Caryopsis reddish brown, cylindrical, 2.5-3 mm long, apex attenuate.
(Description source: O’Connor, P.J. 1990. Poaceae, pp. 1481–1604. In: Wagner W.L., Herbst D.R. & Sohmer S.H. (eds.)., Manual of the flowering plant of Hawaiʻi. Vol. 2. University of Hawaii Press & Bishop Museum Press, Honolulu )