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BOUTELOUA Lag. Grama
Plants hermaphroditic, caespitose or rhizomatous or stoloniferous, annual or perennial. Culms erect or ascending or mat
forming or geniculate or decumbent, glabrous or hairy; internodes solid or hollow, terete. Leaves basal or basal and cauline,
not distinctly distichous; sheaths terete, margins open; auricles absent; ligules a line of hairs; blades flat or folded or
involute, linear, lax, apex acuminate. Panicles of 1-several spicate primary unilateral branches ; primary branches
single or alternate, disarticutating at base of branch or not disarticulating at base of branch, terminating in a
bare point. Spikelets solitary, laterally compressed, disarticulating above or below the glumes, awned, sessile
or subsessile; florets 2-4, reduced floret at apex, rachilla not extended above upper floret, rudiment 3-awned;
glumes 2, 1-veined, unequal, shorter or longer than first floret, glabrous or hairy, awnless or awned; lemmas 3-veined,
membranous, apex 1-3 toothed, awned or awnless; paleas 2-veined, awnless, glabrous. Stamens 3; anthers reddish orange
or yellow. Caryopses with pericarp adnate to seed coat, linear to ovate, brown. Base chromosome number x=10.
A New World genus of about 40 species with the distribution centered in northern Mexico. The grama
grasses are generally considered important for livestock forage and as prominent in the environment.
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