Mary E. Barkworth

Plants annual or perennial; habit various, rhizomatous, stoloniferous, or cespitose. Culms 10-300 cm; internodes pith-filled. Sheaths strongly keeled, glabrous, scabrous, or pubescent; ligules membranous, erose to lacerate or ciliate, occasionally absent; blades, particularly those of the basal leaves, often with long, coarse hairs near the base of the adaxial surface and margins. Inflorescences terminal, panicles with (1)5-30 spikelike branches, these usually borne digitately, occasionally in 2-several whorls, sometimes with a few isolated branches below the primary whorl(s), all branches usually exceeding the upper leaves; branches with spikelets in 2 rows on 1 side of the branch axes. Spikelets solitary, sessile to pedicellate, laterally compressed, with 2-3(5) florets, usually only the lowest floret bisexual, rarely the lower 2 florets bisexual, remaining floret(s) sterile or staminate; floretslaterally compressed or terete, cylindrical to obovoid, awned or unawned, sterile and staminate florets progressively reduced distally if more than 1 present; disarticulation usually beneath the lowest floret in the spikelets, all florets falling as a unit, sometimes at the uppermost cauline node, panicles falling intact. Glumes unequal, exceeded by the florets, lanceolate, acute to acuminate, usually unawned, occasionally awned, awns to 0.3 mm; calluses bearded; lemmas of bisexual florets 3-veined, marginal veins pubescent, midveins usually glabrous, sometimes scabrous, usually extending into an awn, sometimes merely mucronate, awns to 37 mm, lemma apices truncate or obtuse, entire or bilobed, lobes, when present, sometimes awn-tipped, awns to 0.6 mm; paleas shorter than the lemmas, 2-veined, veins scabrous; anthers 3; lodicules 2. Caryopses ovoid, elliptic, or obovoid. x = (9)10. Named for Chloris, the Greek goddess of flowers.

Cope, T.A. Poaceae (1995) Flora of Somalia 4: 149-270

Plants annual or perennial. Panicle branches usually digitate, their spikelets appressed or pectinate on the branch axes. Spikelets laterally compressed, with 1 fertile floret, sometimes with a smaller male floret distal to the fertile floret; rachillas terminating in 1 or more reduced lemmas; glumes acute; fertile lemmas keeled, cartilaginous to coriaceous, mostly pallid, often decoratively ciliate on the margins, entire or bilobed, conspicuously awned from the tip or just below it. Grains ellipsoid and trigonous to lanceolate and subterete, the pericarp free.

Chloris includes about 55 species in tropical and warm temperate regions of both hemispheres.

Key to the species of Chloris in Somaliland and Somalia.

Global distribution of Chloris.