Briza minor L.

Annual herbs; culms (5)-10-80 cm tall, erect or somewhat geniculate below, glabrous. Leaf blades 2-20 cm long, 2-10 mm wide; sheaths entirely glabrous, the juncture with the blade long and narrowly triangular, the base of the blade extending downward as much as 3 cm as a wing on the sheath; ligule 2.3-6.5 mm long at the apex, extending down to merge with the hyaline sheath margin. Panicle (1)-4-14 cm long, 1-12 cm wide, ovoid, the branches widely spreading at maturity, scabrous, usually bearing more than 20 spikelets, or as few as 5 in depauperate specimens, the pedicels pendent. Spikelets 2.9-4 mm long, 3.5-4.1 mm wide, triangular-ovate, greenish; florets 5-9; glumes 3-5 nerved, herbaceous in the centre, hyaline at the margins, the lower glumes 1.6-2.4 mm long, the upper glumes 1.8-2.7 mm long; lower lemma 1.6-2.3 mm long, 5-9 nerved, the palea about 2/3 as long as the lemma; anthers 0.3-0.7 mm long, yellow or purple; stigmas white. Caryopsis 0.7-1 mm long, 0.5-0.7 mm wide, circular to obovate-elliptic in outline, flat to slightly concave on the hilum side, strongly convex on the embryo side, free from the palea, the hilum punctate, subbasal.

Near habitations. Native of the Mediterranean; introduced in higher altitudes of India as ornamental.