皱稃草族 zhou fu cao zu

Authors: Shou-liang Chen & Sylvia M. Phillips

Annuals or perennials. Leaf blades linear; ligule usually membranous. Inflorescence a panicle, often contracted or reduced. Spikelets with 3 florets, 2 lower florets reduced to sterile lemmas, upper floret fertile, laterally compressed, disarticulating above the glumes but not between the florets; glumes shorter than or exceeding florets, membranous, persistent; sterile lemmas subequal, leathery, keeled, often transversely wrinkled, the upper hooked at the base, enclosing fertile floret, sometimes awned; fertile lemma cartilaginous to leathery, keeled, 5–7-veined, entire, awnless; palea hyaline, 2-veined and 2-keeled, or occasionally only 1-veined or 3–5-veined; lodicules 2, elliptic or 2-lobed; stamens 1–4 or 6; stigmas 2. Caryopsis with small embryo and linear hilum. Leaf anatomy: non-Kranz; microhairs slender or apical cell short and inflated; fusoid cells absent. x = 12.

One genus and 38 species: warm-temperate regions of the Old World, mainly in Australia and South Africa; one species (introduced) in China.

Lower Taxon

• Ehrharta Thunberg