38. Leersia Solander ex Swartz, Prodr. 21. 1788.
假稻属 jia dao shu
Homalocenchrus Mieg, nom. rej.
Perennial aquatic or marsh plants, stoloniferous or rhizomatous. Culms slender, lower part creeping or floating, upper part erect or ascending, many-noded, nodes swollen, hairy. Leaf blades mainly cauline, linear-lanceolate; ligule papery. Inflorescence a lax panicle, branches often simple and racemelike, pedicels short. Spikelets with one floret, elliptic to narrowly oblong, straighter on one side, strongly laterally compressed, disarticulating from pedicel; glumes absent; lemma boat-shaped, keeled, firmly papery or leathery, prominently 5-veined, marginal veins interlocking with marginal veins of palea, keel scabrid to pectinate ciliate, apex acute or beaked, awnless; palea resembling lemma but narrower, 3-veined, keel ciliate. Stamens 1, 2, 3, or 6. Caryopsis oblong, embryo 1/3 length of caryopsis, hilum linear. x = 12.
About 20 species: tropical and warm-temperate regions of the world; four species in China.
This genus is distinguished from Oryza only by the absence of sterile lemmas.
