Family: Poaceae |
Mary E. Barkworth Plants perennial; sometimes stoloniferous, sometimes also rhizomatous, often forming dense turf. Culms 4-100 cm. Sheathsopen; auricles absent; ligules of hairs or membranous; blades flat, conduplicate, convolute, or involute, sometimes disarticulating. Inflorescences terminal, digitate or subdigitate panicles of spikelike branches; branches (1)2-20, 1-sided, with 2 rows of solitary, subsessile, appressed, imbricate spikelets. Spikelets laterally compressed, with 1(-3) florets, only the lowest floret functional; rachilla extension usually present, sometimes terminating in a reduced floret; disarticulation above the glumes. Glumes usually shorter than the lemmas, membranous, keeled, usually muticous; lower glumes 1-veined; upper glumes 1-3-veined, occasionally shortly awned; lemmas membranous to cartilaginous, 3-veined, keeled, keels with hairs, occasionally winged, apices mucronate or muticous; paleas about as long as the lemmas, 2-keeled; anthers 3; style branches 2, plumose; lodicules 2. x = 9. Name from the Greek kyon, dog, and odous, tooth, a reference to the sharp, hard scales of the rhizome. T.A. Cope (1993) Poaceae Flora of Somalia 4: 148-270 Plants perennial, usually rhizomatous, stoloniferous, or both, sward-forming. Inflorescences digitate terminal clustes of spikelike branches, sometimes with 1 or 2 more closely spaces whorls below the terminal clust. Spikelets strongly laterally comppressed, with 1 floret, with or without a rachilla extension (this, rarely, bearing a vestigial floret); glymes from very short to equalling the floret; lemmas keeled, firmly cartilaginous, entire, unawned. Caryopses ellipsoid, laterally compressed. Cynodon includes about 8 species, most native to the Old World tropics, one species pantropical and extending into warm temperate regions. Two species are known from Somaliland and Somalia. Key to the species of Cynodon in Somaliland and Somalia.
Vascular Plants of NE US and adjacent Canada Spikelets 1-fld, articulated above the glumes; glumes narrow, subequal, 1-veined; lemma strongly flattened, 3-veined, acute, awnless, the lateral veins near the margin; palea narrow, nearly as long as the lemma; rachilla prolonged behind the palea as a slender bristle half as long as the lemma; perennials with short blades, the ligule a ring of hairs, and slender digitate spikes of small spikelets. 10, warm reg. Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp. ©The New York Botanical Garden. All rights reserved. Used by permission. |