Aira (carnation-like)

Family Lamiaceae (mint family). Grows on the slopes of sandy hills and ridges, coastal dunes and riverside pebble banks in the near-Atlantic and Southern Europe, in Crimea.

Annual plants 5–30 cm tall. Panicles 3–8 cm long, diffuse, with thin, widely spreading branched twigs, bearing pinkish-silvery spikelets 0.2–0.3 cm long on pedicels 0.1–0.4 cm long; the lower floral scales of both flowers of the spikelet with awns. 2n=14. Flowers in late spring–summer.