| Small creeping usually maritime grass. Leaves short, rigid. Spike short, stiff. Spikelets appressed to the rhachis | 2. Zoysia. |
Tribe III. PANICEÆ.
Spikelets with 1 terminal hermaphrodite flower with or without a male one below it. Flowering glumes awnless, cartilaginous or coriaceous, in fruit hardened and enclosing the grain. Outer glumes thinner in texture than the flowering glumes, rarely awned.
| Spikelets 1-flowered, plano-convex, sessile in 2 or 4 rows in one-sided spikes which are either in pairs or form the branches of a simple panicle. Empty glumes 2 | 3. Paspalum. |
| Spikelets with 2 hermaphrodite flowers, panicled; outer glumes 2, persistent after the rest of the spikelet has fallen away | 4. Isachne. |
| Spikelets with 1 hermaphrodite flower and sometimes a male flower below; outer glumes 2 or 3, not awned, the lowest often very small | 5. Panicum. |
| Stems weak, decumbent; leaves broad, ovate to lanceolate. Spikelets as in Pancium, but outer glumes awned | 6. Oplismenus. |
| Spikelets enclosed, each one or 2–3 together, in an involucre of rigid spines or bristles, often connate into a cup below | 7. Cenchrus. |
| Stout wide-creeping sand-plant. Inflorescence dioecious; males in spikes clustered in heads; females in dense globular heads with long radiating pungent-pointed bracts | 8. Spinifex. |
Division B. POACEÆ.
Spikelets not articulated on the pedicel below the glumes, the rhachilla continuous with the pedicel, and the articulations above the outer glumes and frequently also between the flowering glumes. Flowers 1 to many, the lowest flower perfect, the uppermost often male or imperfect. (Lower flower imperfect in Phalarideæ.)
Tribe IV. PHALARIDEÆ.
Spikelets with 1 terminal hermaphrodite flower, with or without 1 or 2 male or rudimentary flowers below. Outer glumes 4, the lower 2 sometimes small, the 2 inner sometimes serving as flowering glumes for male flowers.
| First and second outer glumes smaller than the third and fourth. Flowering glumes obtuse | 9. Ehrharta. |
| First and second outer glumes minute, many times smaller than the third and fourth. Flowering glumes acute | 10. Microlæna. |
| First and second outer glumes as large as the third and fourth, both of which usually contain a male flower | 11. Hierochlœ. |
Tribe V. AGROSTIDEÆ.
Spikelets 1-flowered; rhachilla frequently produced beyond the flower. Outer glumes 2, usually as long or longer than the flowering glume.
| Spikelets panicled. Outer glumes usually longer than the flowering, which are rigid and convolute and awned. Awn long, terminal, bent, usually twisted below the bend | 12. Stipa. |
| Panicle short and dense, cylindrical, bristly from the long awns. Flowering glume hyaline, 3-fid, middle lobe produced into a long awn. Rhachilla evidently produced | 13. Echinopogon. |
