Family: Poaceae |
Mary E. Barkworth Plants annual or perennial; cespitose, sometimes with extensive creeping stolons. Culms 15-200 cm. Leaves usually not aromatic; ligules membranous, sometimes ciliate; blades 2-4 mm wide. Inflorescences terminal, sometimes also axillary but the axillary inflorescences not numerous; peduncles with 1-many rames in digitate or subdigitate clusters; rames sometimes naked basally, axes terete to slightly flattened, without a translucent, longitudinal groove, bearing 1-many sessile-pedicellate spikelet pairs and a terminal triplet of 1 sessile and 2 pedicellate spikelets, basal pair(s) homomorphic and homogamous, staminate or sterile, unawned, persistent, distal spikelet pairs homomorphic but heterogamous, sessile spikelets bisexual and awned, pedicellate spikelets staminate or sterile and unawned; disarticulation in the rames, beneath the bisexual sessile spikelets. Sessile spikelets often imbricate, dorsally compressed, with blunt calluses; lower glumes chartaceous to cartilaginous, broadly convex to slightly concave, sometimes pitted; lower florets reduced, sterile; upper florets sterile or staminate and unawned in the homogamous pairs, bisexual and awned in the heterogamous pairs; awns 1-3.5 cm, usually glabrous; anthers (2)3. Pedicels free of the rame axes, terete to somewhat flattened, slender, not grooved. Pedicellate spikeletssterile or staminate. x = 10. Name from the Greek dicha, in two, as in two separate things, and anthos, flower, a reference to the presence of homogamous and heterogamous spikelets. T.A. Cope (1995) Dichanthium. Flora of Somalia 4: 254-256 Plants annual or perennial. Leaves sometimes aromatic; ligules membranous. Inflorescences terminal, sometimes also axillary. of single or subditate rames [spikelike branches composed of sessile pedicellate spikelet pairs]; rames sometimes stalked, with or without homagamous pairs at the base; internodes and pedicels linear, soild. Sessile spikelets dorsally compressed; calluses very short, obtuse; lower glumes chartaceous to cartilaginous, broadly convex to slightly concave on the base, abruptly rounds on the sides, with or without a circular pit; upper lemmas stipelik, enttire or minutely 2-toothed, with a glabrous or puberulous awn. Pedciellate spikelets usually similar to the sessile spikelets, rarely herbaceous. Caryopses oblong, dorsally compressed. Dichanthium is a genus of about 20 species. It is primarily tropica in its distribution. There are two species, one with two varieties, in Somaliland and Somalia. Key to the species of Dichanthium in Somaliland and Somalia. Global distribution of Dichanthium. Note: GBIF records include introduced and cultivated plants. Consequently, the distribution shown often differs from statements about a taxon's native distribution.
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