野古草族 ye gu cao zu

Authors: Bi-xing Sun, Zhen-lan Wu & Sylvia M. Phillips

Annual or perennial. Leaf blades usually linear; ligule very short, membranous, margin sometimes ciliate. Inflorescence a panicle, often large with numerous spikelets, primary branches frequently racemose, spikelets usually paired (in China), often immature at emergence. Spikelets all alike, narrowly lanceolate to ovate, slightly laterally or dorsally compressed, florets 1 or 2, falling entire or breaking up; glumes equal to spikelet or lower glume usually shorter, membranous to leathery, 3–5-veined, often tuberculate-setose; lower floret (when florets 2) staminate or barren, its lemma resembling upper glume, often persistent, 3–5-veined, usually with a narrow palea; upper floret (or single floret) bisexual, its lemma membranous, thinly leathery or cartilaginous, entire to 2-lobed, awned from apex or sinus, rarely awnless; awn geniculate with twisted column, or straight, sometimes deciduous. Caryopsis with linear or punctiform hilum. Leaf anatomy mainly Kranz MS type, including the genera in China.

Twelve genera and ca. 175 species: tropics of both hemispheres, but mainly in Africa and Asia; two genera and 25 species (ten endemic) in China.

Lower Taxa

• Arundinella Raddi
• Garnotia Brongniart