Dupontia

Plants perennial; rhizomatous. Culms 5-80 cm. Sheaths closed for 1/2-2/3 of their length, glabrous; auricles absent; ligules membranous, glabrous, truncate; blades flat or folded, usually glabrous, sometimes scabrous or shortly pubescent adaxially. Inflorescences panicles, diffuse to dense and spikelike, with few spikelets; branches smooth, stiff, erect to reflexed, secondary branches usually appressed. Spikelets pedicellate, slightly laterally compressed; florets 1-4(5), distal florets sterile; rachillas prolonged beyond the uppermost floret or terminating in a vestigial floret, glabrous; disarticulation above the glumes and beneath the fertile florets. Glumes subequal, equaling or usually exceeding the distal florets, ovate and obtuse to lanceolate-attenuate, membranous, glabrous, 1-3-veined; calluses short, blunt, with a ring of stiff hairs, hairs to about 1 mm; lemmas ovate to ovate-lanceolate, membranous to coriaceous, glabrous or pubescent, with 3(5) fine veins, apices acute to acuminate, midveins sometimes excurrent as a mucro or awn to 1(2.2) mm; paleas shorter than the lemmas, glabrous, sometimes scabrous on the veins; lodicules 2, membranous, glabrous; anthers 3; ovaries glabrous. Caryopses falling free of the lemma and palea; hila 1/6-1/3 the length of the caryopses, ovate. x = not clear, 7 or 11. Named after the early nineteenth century French botanist J.D. Dupont.