Plants annual and tufted, or perennial and rhizomatous. Culms 20–150 cm, sometimes tuberous at the base, erect. Leaves mostly cauline; sheaths open, glabrous, ribbed; auricles absent; ligules membranous, acute; blades flat, glabrous. Inflorescences dense, spikelike panicles; branches 1-sided, racemosely arranged, secondary branches few, at least some branches longer than 1 cm, with closely imbricate spikelets; disarticulation below the glumes, the spikelets falling entire. Spikelets laterally compressed, circular, ovate or obovate in side view, subsessile, with 1–2 florets; rachillas not prolonged beyond the base of the distal floret. Glumes subequal, slightly shorter than the lemmas, inflated, keeled, D-shaped in side view, unawned; calluses blunt, glabrous; lemmas lanceolate, inconspicuously 5-veined, unawned; paleas subequal to the lemmas; lodicules 2, free; anthers 3; ovaries glabrous. Caryopses shorter than the lemmas, concealed at maturity. x = 7. Named for Johann Beckmann (1739–1811), a German botanist and author of one of the first botanical dictionaries.
Beckmannia is a genus of two species: an annual species usually with one fertile floret per spikelet that is native to North America and Asia, and a perennial species with two fertile florets per spikelet that is restricted to Eurasia.
SELECTED REFERENCE Reeder, J.R. 1953. Affinities of the grass genus Beckmannia Host. Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 80:187–196.