24. Section Phyllostachyae (Tuck.) L.H. Bailey
Plants monoecious, without rhizomes, forming dense tufts or clumps.
Vegetative stems present (actually false stems composed nearly entirely of
a series of overlapping leafsheaths), leafy. Flowering stems erect or arched,
weak and slender, somewhat widened just below the inflorescence, sharply
trigonous, roughened on the angles toward the tip, glabrous, light brown at the
base. Leaves basal or nearly so, mostly longer than the stems, dark green,
glabrous, the lowermost leaves reduced to nearly bladeless sheaths, the partially
degraded remains of the previous year’s leaves persistent, light brown. Leaf
sheaths with the tip truncate to slightly convex, the ventral surface thin, green
to white, the ligule wider than long and U-shaped, the lowermost sheath bases
light brown. Inflorescences with 1–3 spikes, the uppermost terminal, the others
basal ornearly so, on long, slender stalks, the inflorescence lacking bracts
(except for the bractlike, pistillate scales). Spikes all alike, staminate toward
the tip and pistillate toward the base. Pistillate portion of the spikes with 2–9
perigynia, the lowermost 1 or 2 scales 15–50 mm long and leaflike, the
uppermost reduced, white-margined and sometimes awned. Perigynia 2-ribbed but
otherwise nerveless, the main body circular to elliptic-obovate in outline,
circular in cross-section, narrowed abruptly to a thick, stalklike base,
tapered abruptly at the tip into a more or less trigonous beak as long as or somewhat
longer than the main body, green, glabrous. Styles withering during fruit
development, jointed to the main body of the fruit, which is not beaked at
maturity. Stigmas 3.
Eight species, U.S., Canada.