短颖草族 duan ying cao zu

Authors: Sheng-lian Lu & Sylvia M. Phillips

Perennials. Leaf blades narrowly lanceolate, with or without indistinct cross veins, constricted at base; ligule membranous. Inflorescence a scanty panicle. Spikelets all alike, floret 1 with bristle-like rachilla extension, dorsally compressed, disarticulating above glumes; glumes unequal, tiny, lower glume vestigial, upper glume subulate, 1/10–1/4 length of floret; lemma firmly herbacous, 5-veined, tapering into a straight awn from apex; palea as long as lemma, convolute; stamens 2. Caryopsis linear, the apex with a pallid pubescent beak bearing 2 terminal stigmas; pericarp thick, separable with difficulty. Leaf anatomy: non-Kranz, microhairs and fusoid cells absent. x = 11.

One genus and three species: two in E North America and one in E Asia including China.

Lower Taxon

• Brachyelytrum P. Beauvois