Plants perennial; stoloniferous, sometimes mat-forming. Culms (1)4-15 cm, initially erect, event¬ually bending and rooting at the base of the inflorescence. Leaves not basally aggregated on the primary culms; sheaths with a tuft of hairs to 2 mm at the throat; ligules of hairs; blades involute. Inflorescences terminal, short, dense panicles of spikelike branches, each subtended by leafy bracts and exceeded by the upper leaves; branches with 2-4 subsessile to shortly pedicellate spikelets. Spikelets laterally compressed, with 4-10 florets; disarticulation above the glumes. Glumes subequal to the adjacent lemmas, glabrous, 1-veined, rounded or weakly keeled, shortly awned to mucronate; florets bisexual; lemmas rounded or weakly keeled, densely pilose on the lower 1/2 and on the margins, thinly membranous, 3-veined, 2-lobed, lobes about 1/2 as long as the lemmas and obtuse, midveins extending into awns as long as or longer than the lobes, lateral veins not excurrent; paleas about as long as the lemmas; anthers 3. Caryopses oval in cross section, translucent; embryos more than 1/2 as long as the caryopses. x = 8.
Distribution
Md., Colo., N.Mex., Tex., Utah, Calif., Wyo., Ariz., Nev.
Discussion
Dasyochloa is a monotypic genus that is restricted to the United States and Mexico. It has been included in the past in each of the following: Triodia, Tridens, and Erioneuron. Dasyochloa differs from all three of these genera, but resembles Munroa, in its leafy-bracteate inflorescence (Caro 1981). Seedlings of Dasyochloa, like those of Erioneuron, are shaggy-white-villous. This indumentum is composed of myriads of hairlike, water soluble crystals that wash off in water. They are the product of transpiration and evaporation.