Description:

• Annual or perennial, tufted
• Leaf blade linear to linear-lanceolate, expanded; ligule an unfringed membrane
• Inflorescence a panicle, open to loosely contracted; spikelets solitary, pedicelled
• Spikelet laterally compressed or globose, ovate to rotund, disarticulating above glumes and between florets; glumes ± equal, shorter than spikelet, similar, 3-9-nerved, awnless
• Florets many, bisexual; upper floret sometimes reduced, closely imbricate, lemma similar in texture to glume, papery with broad scarious margins all round, as broad as long, gibbous, cordate at base, not keeled, horizontally spreading, 7-9-nerved, obtuse to acuminate, 2-lobed, awnless or mucronate; callus short, glabrous; palea shorter than lemma, membranous, 2-keeled, keels often narrowly winged
• Lodicules 2, small, glabrous
• Stamens 3
• Ovary glabrous
• Caryopsis ellipsoid
• x = 5, 7 (aneuploids, polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• *Briza L.
  • Linnaeus: 70 (1753)
  • Stapf: 707 (1900)
  • Chippindall: 47 (1955)
  • Launert: 45 (1971)
  • Matthei: 5 (1975)
  • Hubbard: 51 (1970)
  • Tutin: 173 (1980)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 99 (1986)
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 72 (1990)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 185 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 20, temperate Eurasia, South America
• Southern Africa: Species 3, naturalised, widely distributed, not recorded from Namibia and Botswana