糖蜜草属 tang mi cao shu

Authors: Shou-liang Chen & Sylvia M. Phillips

Rhynchelytrum Nees.

Annuals or perennials. Culms tufted, often decumbent at the base. Leaf sheaths usually loose; leaf blades linear; ligule a ciliate rim. Inflorescence a panicle; pedicels slender, glabrous or with a few long hairs at the tip. Spikelets elliptic or oblong, laterally compressed, hairy or glabrous; lower glume small or absent; upper glume as long as spikelet, membranous to papery, 5–9-veined, acute, emarginate or 2-lobed, awned or awnless, sometimes gibbous on the back and tapering to a beak; lower floret staminate or neuter, lemma resembling the upper glume, 3–7-veined, palea with ciliate or scaberulous keels or absent; upper floret laterally compressed, membranous to thinly cartilaginous, readily deciduous. x = 9.

Twenty-two species: mainly in tropical and S Africa; two species introduced throughout the tropics, including China.

Lower Taxa

• Melinis minutiflora P. Beauvois
• Melinis repens (Willdenow) Zizka