细画眉草属 xi hua mei cao shu

Authors: Shou-liang Chen & Sylvia M. Phillips

Perennials, compactly tufted. Culms slender, rigidly erect, unbranched. Leaf blades mainly basal, filiform; ligule membranous with ciliate fringe. Inflorescence a single subsecund spikelike raceme with sessile or subsessile, biseriate spikelets. Spikelets laterally compressed with many tightly imbricate florets, narrow, often linear-oblong, lemmas disarticulating at maturity leaving the persistent rachilla and paleas, but sometimes the upper part shed as a whole; glumes shorter than lemmas, subequal or upper slightly longer, 1–3-veined; lemmas ovate or lanceolate, cartilaginous, 3-veined, glabrous, keeled along midvein, acute or obtuse; palea keels usually narrowly winged, wing margins usually ciliolate. Grain ellipsoid.

Six species: E Africa through India to SE Asia and N Australia; one species (endemic) in China.

This homogeneous and easily recognized genus of rather small grasses is split from Eragrostis on the basis of its single terminal raceme.

Lower Taxon

• Eragrostiella lolioides (Handel-Mazzetti) P. C. Keng