73. Pseudosclerochloa Tzvelev, Bot. Zhurn. 89: 840. 2004.
假硬草属 jia ying cao shu
Authors: Liang Liu & Nikolai N. Tzvelev
Annual, rarely biennial, tufted. Culms short. Leaf sheaths split; leaf blades linear, flat or loosely folded; ligule membranous. Inflorescence a moderately dense, 1-sided panicle; branches stiff, bearing spikelets to base; pedicels short, thick. Spikelets with 2–7 florets; rachilla thick, disarticulating below each floret; glumes shorter than lemmas, 1–3-veined, cartilaginous in lower part, apex obtuse or acute; lemmas oblong to ovate, subcartilaginous, 3–5-veined, glabrous, strongly keeled above middle, apex obtuse; palea as long as lemma, scabrid along keel. Caryopsis with small round hilum.
Two species: one in W Europe, one endemic to China.
This is one of the small, satellite, annual genera close to Poa. It is excluded from Puccinellia by its keeled lemmas and stiff, 1-sided panicles, and from Sclerochloa by its regularly disarticulating spikelets, 3-veined upper glume, and lack of a beak on the caryopsis.
