细莞属 xi guan shu

Authors: Prof. Song-Yun Liang, A. Muthama Muasya & David A. Simpson

Herbs, annual or rarely perennial. Rhizomes present or absent. Culms tufted, terete. Leaves all basal; sheath green to straw-colored, sometimes nearly reddish; ligule absent; leaf blade often much reduced. Involucral bract leaflike, spreading to erect. Inflorescences capitate, with few to many spikelets or reduced to a single spikelet, rarely an anthela. Spikelets with few to many spirally arranged mostly deciduous glumes. Glumes each subtending a flower but basalmost sometimes empty. Flowers bisexual. Perianth bristles absent. Stamens 1-3. Style linear, persistent, base not or slightly thickened, apex 2- or 3-cleft. Nutlet mostly obovoid, biconvex or 3-sided, papillose or longitudinally ribbed.

About 70 species: worldwide, especially Africa and Australia; one species in China.

Lower Taxon

• Isolepis setacea (Linnaeus) R. Brown