Family: Poaceae |
Lisa A. Standley Plants usually perennial, rarely annual; cespitose or rhizomatous, rarely both cespitose and rhizomatous. Culms (8)20-200 cm, glabrous or pubescent; nodes glabrous or retrorsely pubescent. Sheaths open; auricles absent; ligules 1-5 mm, membranous, entire or erose-ciliate, glabrous or puberulent; blades flat, pubescent. Inflorescences terminal panicles, contracted to open. Spikelets laterally compressed, with 2(3) florets, lower florets bisexual, upper floret(s) staminate or sterile; rachillas curved below the lowest florets, sometimes prolonged beyond the uppermost florets; disarticulationbelow the glumes. Glumes equaling to exceeding the florets, strongly keeled; lower glumes 1-veined; upper glumes 3-veined; calluses glabrous or pubescent; lemmas firm, shining, glabrous or pubescent, obscurely 3-5-veined, often bidentate; lower lemmas unawned; upper lemmas awned from below the apices, awns hooked or geniculate; paleas thin, subequal to the lemmas; lodicules 2, glabrous, toothed or not toothed; anthers 3; ovariesglabrous. Caryopses glabrous. x = 4, 7. Name from the Greek holkos, a kind of grain, perhaps sorghum. SELECTED REFERENCES Carroll, C.P. and K. Jones. 1962. Cytotaxonomic studies in Holcus. III. A morphological study of the triploid F1 hybrid between H. lanatus L. and H. mollis L. New Phytol. 61:72-84; Jones, K. 1958. Cytotaxonomic studies in Holcus L. I. The chromosome complex in Holcus mollis L. New Phytol. 57:191-210; Jones, K. and C.P. Carroll. 1962. Cytotaxonomic studies in Holcus L. II. Morphological relationships in H. mollis L. New Phytol. 6163-71; Zandee, M. and P.C.G. Glas. 1982. Studies in the Holcus lanatus-Holcus mollis complex (Poaceae [= Gramineae]). Proc. Kon. Ned. Akad. Wetensch., C 85:413-437. |