凉山香茅 liang shan xiang mao

Perennial. Culms solitary or in small tufts, slender, 50–110 cm tall. Leaf sheaths glabrous; leaf blades linear, glaucous, 20–30 × 0.3–0.5 cm, slightly scaberulous, glabrous, lower blades narrowed almost to midrib toward base; ligule 1.5–2.5 mm. Spathate panicle open, 30–40 cm, branches slender, laxly ascending; spatheoles narrowly lanceolate, greenish brown, 2–2.5 cm; racemes green, 1.5–1.8 cm, raceme bases linear, not deflexing; homogamous pair reduced, vestigial or often absent; rachis internodes and pedicels slenderly linear, margins ciliate with ca. 0.5 mm hairs increasing to 1.5 mm at apex, apices expanded, cupular, scarious, toothed. Sessile spikelet narrowly elliptic-oblong, 3.7–4 mm; lower glume shallowly concave below middle, sharply keeled, keels scabrid, wingless, 2–4-veined between keels above middle; upper lemma 2-lobed; awn 1.3–1.5 cm. Pedicelled spikelet narrow, 2–3 mm, reduced to the glumes, lower glume enclosing a much smaller upper glume. Fl. and fr. Jul–Sep.

* Mountain slopes. SW Sichuan.

This species resembles Andropogon in its non-deflexing racemes and the lack of an obvious homogamous spikelet pair, although this is usually present as a vestige. It is not known whether the leaves are aromatic. The enlarged, toothed, cupular tips to the raceme bases, raceme internodes, and pedicels are a distinctive character of this species.