Plants annual. Culms 2–30 cm. Sheaths open to closed; auricles absent; ligules membranous; blades flat or folded. Inflorescences terminal, usually racemes, sometimes reduced panicles, 1-sided, usually exceeded by the leaves. Spikelets laterally compressed, subsessile to pedicellate; pedicels 0.5–1 mm long, 0.5–0.8 mm thick, stout, with 2–7 florets; rachillas glabrous, lowest internodes thicker than those above; disarticulation tardy, not strongly localized. Glumes unequal, shorter than the lowest lemmas, glabrous, with wide hyaline margins, apices obtuse to emarginate, unawned; lower glumes (1)3–5-veined; upper glumes (3)5–9-veined; calluses blunt, glabrous; lemmasmembranous, with hyaline margins, indurate at maturity, (5)7–9-veined, veins prominent, apices rounded to emarginate, entire, unawned; paleas shorter than to equaling the lemmas, dorsally compressed; lodicules 2, free, glabrous, entire to lacerate; anthers 3. Caryopses shorter than the lemmas, concealed at maturity, beaked from the persistent style base, falling free; hila round. x = 7. Name from the Greek skleros, ‘hard’, and chloa, ‘grass’, alluding to the leathery glumes and lemmas.
Sclerochloa is a genus of two species, both of which are native to southern Europe and western Asia. The species found in the Flora region, S. dura, is now a cosmopolitan weed.
SELECTED REFERENCES Brandenburg, D.M., J.R. Estes, and J.W. Thieret. 1991. Hard grass (Sclerochloa dura, Poaceae) in the United States. Sida 14:369–376; Brandenburg, D.M. and J.W. Thieret. 1996. Sclerochloa dura (Poaceae) in Kentucky. Trans. Kentucky Acad. Sci. 57:47–48; Cusick, A.W., R.K. Rabeler, and M.J. Oldham. 2002. Hard or fairgrounds grass (Sclerochloa dura, Poaceae) in the Great Lakes region. Michigan Bot. 41:125–135.