Vegetative Morphology
Plants	annual.
Culms	5-120 cm, glabrous.
Sheaths	open.
Collars	glabrous.
Auricles	absent.
Ligules	membranous, often lacerate to erose.
Blades	flat or weakly involute, glabrous.
Reproductive Morphology
Inflorescences	terminal panicles.
Spikelets	slightly laterally compressed, with 1 floret (rarely with additional vestigial florets distally).
Rachillas	prolonged as a bristle, rarely terminating in a vestigial floret.
Disarticulation	above the glumes.
Glumes	unequal, unawned.
Lower glumes	1-veined.
Upper glumes	slightly shorter to slightly longer than the florets, 3-veined.
Calluses	blunt, glabrous or sparsely hairy.
Lemmas	firmer than the glumes, awned, obscurely 5-veined.
Paleas	equaling or to about 3/4 the length of the lemmas.
Awns	subterminal.
Anthers	3.
Ovaries	glabrous.
Caryopses	1.2-2 mm.

Chromosome Number(s)

x = 7

Nativity / Range

Native to Europe and western Asia.

Differs from Agrostis in its (1) firm lemmas, (2) paleas that are always present and equal or nearly so to the lemma, and (3) prolonged rachillas.

Apera Adanson, Fam. pl. 2:495 (1763). Anemagrostis Trin., Fund. Agrost. 129 (1820). TYPE: Apera spica-venti (L.) P. Beauv.

K.W. Allred. Apera in Flora of North America, volume 24. In prep. Oxford University Press.