18. Poaceae Tribe ARUNDINEAE
芦竹族 lu zhu zu
Authors: Liang Liu & Sylvia M. Phillips
Perennials, mostly tall reeds, culms hollow. Leaf blades linear or broadly linear; ligule a line of hairs or membranous. Inflorescence an open or contracted panicle, often large and plumose with numerous spikelets. Spikelets laterally compressed, florets 2 to several, fertile with uppermost reduced, or lowest sterile, disarticulating above glumes and between florets, lowest persistent when sterile; floret callus truncate to linear, glabrous, laterally pilose or long-plumose; glumes persistent, variable in length, shorter than lemmas or as long as spikelet, membranous, 1–5-veined, apex acute to acuminate; lemmas narrow, rounded on back, hyaline to chartaceous, 1–7-veined, glabrous or plumose, apex acute or 2-toothed, awnless or a short straight awn arising from apex; palea short or subequaling lemma. Stamens 2 or 3. Caryopsis with hilum short or long-linear. Leaf anatomy non-Kranz; microhairs slender with long, narrow terminal cell. x = 9 or 12.
Four genera and ten species: one genus cosmopolitan, otherwise temperate Old World, but widely introduced elsewhere; three genera and six species in China.
The circumscription of this tribe is not yet settled. It is recognized here in the narrow sense, to include the tall, reedlike grasses with unspecialized spikelets, and their near relatives.
