B. Inflorescence a distinctly branched panicle, more or less loose and spreading.
(a) Tall reed-like perennials, growing in water or in marshes, with plume-like inflorescences, and silky hairs at the base of the paleæ. Glumes with a keel and point, but not awned.
(i) Spikelets purplish: outer palea with a slender dorsal awn: basal hairs longer than the paleæ. Leaves narrow. Not common.
Calamagrostis Epigeios, Roth.
(ii) Spikelets greenish. No awns: basal hairs much shorter than the paleæ. Leaves broad. Common.
Digraphis arundinacea, Trin.
A variety of Digraphis with white stripes in the leaves is grown in gardens. Other aquatic reed-like grasses are Arundo and Glyceria aquatica: both have several flowers in the spikelet.
The rare Calamagrostis lanceolata, Roth., C. stricta, Nutt. and C. strigosa, Hartm. also come here.
(b) Slender grasses, not reed-like, with delicate loosely spreading panicles of small spikelets.
(i) A tall, slender shade-grass, in woods. Paleæ very smooth and glistening. Spikelets few, distant and turgid, awnless.
Milium effusum, L.