Family: Poaceae |
Mary E. Barkworth Plants perennial, occasionally annual; cespitose, sometimes with short rhizomes. Culms 10-150 cm, erect, sometimes branching above the base. Leaves sometimes aromatic; sheaths without glandular pits; ligules shortly membranous and densely ciliate or of hairs; bladesinvolute, flat, or folded. Inflorescences terminal, sometimes also axillary, composed of solitary, flexuous rames; rame internodescolumnar to clavate, apices strongly oblique, not hollowed or rimmed; disarticulation in the rames, below the sessile spikelets. Spikelets in sessile-pedicellate pairs. Sessile spikelets dorsally compressed; calluses blunt, sometimes resembling a short pedicel; lower glumes enclosing the upper glumes, subcoriaceous, 2-keeled, keels prominently ciliate, intercarinal surface smooth, apices cuspidate to bilobed, rarely entire; lower florets reduced, sterile; upper florets bisexual, unawned. Pedicels stout, appressed but not fused to the rame axes, pubescent or ciliate on the angles. Pedicellate spikelets 3-8 mm, about equal to the sessile spikelets, staminate, muticous to awn-tipped. x = 5. Name from the Greek eluein, mouse, and oura, tail, alluding to the narrowly cylindrical inflorescence. T.A. Cope (1995) Elionurus. Flora of Somalia 4: 267-268. Plants annual or perennial. Ligules short, membranous, densely ciliate. Inflorescences terminal or clustered into leafy paniculate clusters, each inflorescence with a more or less elongate central axis bearing numerous spikelike branches composed of sessile-pedicellate spikelet pairs; internodes columnar or subclavate, not hollowed or rimmed. Sessile spikelets lanceolate to narrowly ovate; calluses often large, attached obliquely to the top of the subtending internodes; lower glumes subcoriaceous to herbaceous, broadly convex, 2-keeled, keels ciliately fringed, often bordered with an oil streak, smooth or toothed, usually cuspidate to a bifi tip; lower florets reduced to hyaline lemmas; upper lemmas entire, unawned. Caryopses ellipsoid, dorsally compressed, Pedicellate spikelets well-developed, muticous or aristulate; pedicels resembling axis internodes. Elionurus is a genus of 17 species. They are most numerous in tropical Africa, Ameria, and Australia. Key to the species of Elionurus in Somaliland and Somalia. Global distribution of Elionurus Note: GBIF records include introduced and cultivated plants. Consequently, the distribution shown often differs from statements about a taxon's native distribution. |