2. Poaceae Tribe PHAREAE
囊稃竹族 nang fu zhu zu
Authors: Liang Liu & Sylvia M. Phillips
Perennials. Leaf blades broad, narrowly oblong to oblanceolate, veins slanting obliquely from midrib with transverse connecting veinlets, narrowed into a false petiole, this twisted to bring the abaxial surface uppermost; ligule scarious, margin usually ciliolate. Inflorescence monoecious, an open panicle, ultimate branchlets bearing 1 or 2 female spikelets and a terminal male spikelet. Spikelets unisexual, floret 1, rachilla extension absent. Female spikelet sessile or shortly pedicelled, terete to inflated, disarticulating below floret; glumes scarious, persistent or not, shorter than floret; lemma papery becoming leathery, involute or utriculate, 5- or more-veined, entire, covered in hooked adhesive hairs; palea long, narrow; lodicules absent; stigmas 3. Male spikelet pedicelled, smaller than the female, lanceolate, soon deciduous; lodicules minute or absent; stamens 6. Caryopsis oblong to linear, embryo very small, hilum as long as the caryopsis. Leaf anatomy: non-Kranz; microhairs absent; fusoid cells present. x = 12.
Two or three genera and 13 species: tropics of both hemispheres; one species in China.
This is a small tribe of grasses found in the understory of tropical forests. The broad, twisted leaf blades with slanting veins and transverse veinlets provide an easy means of identification.
