龙常草族 long chang cao zu

Authors: Liang Liu & Sylvia M. Phillips

Perennials with short scaly rhizomes. Culms slender, arching, unbranched. Leaf blades narrowly lanceolate, transverse veinlets present (visible on abaxial surface), narrowed to base; ligule thickly membranous. Inflorescence an open or contracted panicle, sparingly branched. Spikelets all alike, florets 2–5(–7) with uppermost floret reduced, laterally compressed, disarticulating below each floret; glumes lanceolate or ovate, unequal, much shorter than lemmas, membranous, 1–3-veined; lemmas ovate or ovate-elliptic, herbaceous to thinly leathery, rounded on back, 3(–5)-veined, apex obtuse to cuspidate; palea subequal to lemma, keels smooth or ciliate; lodicules 2, large, membranous; stamens 2 or 3. Caryopsis obliquely ellipsoid; pericarp thick, enlarged at apex into a conspicuous pallid knob or beak bearing 2 terminal stigmas, softening and peeling away when wet. Leaf anatomy: non-Kranz; microhairs obscure; fusoid cells absent. x = 10.

One genus and four species: three species in E Asia and one in the United States; three species in China.

This is a small tribe found in warm-temperate forests.

Lower Taxon

• Diarrhena P. Beauvois