- Acuminate - gradually tapering to a sharp point
- Acute - sharp pointed but less tapering than accuminate, angle less than 90 deg
- Annual - a plant that usually germinates, flowers, and dies in one growing season
- Attenuate- gradually narrowing to a slender apex or base
- Awn - a more or less stiff bristle on the end of lemmas or glumes
- Auricle - ear-like lobes at the base of a blade or the top of the sheath.
- Blade - the part of the leaf above the sheath
- Bract - a reduced leaf structure, includes the floret structures of glumes, lemma, and palea
- Bristle - a stiff, slender appendage
- Bunchgrass - a grass without stolons or rhizomes; growth habit of forming a bunch
- Ciliate - fringed with hairs on the margin
- Collar - the region of the outer side of the grass leaf at the junction of the blade and sheath
- Convolute - rolled longitudinally
- Cool Season - growth begins in early spring, stops in the summer, and may regrow in the cool months of the fall. Generally exhibit the C3 photosynthetic pathway.
- Creeping - spreading just under the surface of the soil
- Culm - the stem of the grass plant.
- Decurrent - extending downward from the point of attachment
- Decumbent - term applied to stems that lie flat and turn up at their ends
- Distally - opposite point of attachment
- Entire - whole with a continuous margin
- Erose - irregularly notched at the apex, appearing gnawed or eroded
- Flexuous - bent alternately in opposite directions; a wavy form
- Floret - an individual grass flower including its 2 bracts, lemma and palea
- Geniculate - bent abruptly , like a knee
- Glabrous - smooth without hairs
- Glaucous - covered with powdery or waxy bloom as a plum or cabbage leaf.
- Glumes -pair of bracts at the base of a spikelet
- Hirsute - with straight rather stiff hairs
- Hispid - with rather long stiff hairs
- Hyaline - colorless and translucent
- Inflorescence - the flowering part of a plant
- Internode - the part of a stem between 2 successive nodes
- Involute - rolled inward on the upper surface
- Introduced - species which have been brought into North America
- Invader - undesirable range plants which invade and take over a range after the decreasers and increasers are largely gone
- Lemma - the lower bract of the two bracts of a grass floret
- Knotty - with a hardened mass at the base or nodes
- Lacerate - appearing torn at the edge or irregularly cleft
- Ligule - the membranous or hairy, usually flap-like appendage on the inside of a leaf at the junction of the sheath and blade
- Membranous - thin, like a membrane
- Native - species which originated in North America
- Nerve - vein on glume, lemma or palea
- Node - region on a stem where where leaves and branches are produced
- Obtuse - blunt or rounded (apex or base), usually making an angle of more than 90 degrees
- Palea - the inner of the 2 bracts of a grass floret
- Pedicel - the stalk of a spikelet
- Perennial - a plant living more than 1 year
- Pistil - female reproductive structures of a flower
- Pilose - soft-hairy
- Puberulent - diminutive of pubescent
- Pubescent - clothed with soft hairs or down
- Raceme - an inflorescence in which the spikelets are pedicelled on a rachis
- Retrorse - directed back or downward
- Rhizome - an underground stem
- Rhizomatous - having rhizomes
- Scabrous - roughened with stout projections
- Seedhead - the flowering portion of a grass plant
- Seedhead stem (Culm) - the jointed stem of a grass
- Sheath - the part of a leaf that envelopes the stem
- Sod-forming - a grass with stolons or rhizomes
- Spike - an unbranched inflorescence in which the spikelets are sessile on a rachis
- Spikelet - the unit of inflorescence in grasses consisting of 2 glumes and 1 or more florets
- Sterile - without female reproductive structures
- Stolon - an above ground modified reproductive stem
- Stoloniferous - bearing stolons
- Striate - marked with slender, longitudinal grooves or lines, appearing striped.
- Strigose - with stiff, straight, appressed hairs
- Tometose - covered wth matted and tangled hairs
- Truncate - as though abruptly "chopped off" at the base or apex
- Villous- densely hairy with long, soft hairs
- Warm season - growth begins in late spring, continues through summer, and stops in early fall
