Family: Poaceae |
J.K Wipff Plants annual or perennial; habit various. Culms 20-150 cm, erect, decumbent, or prostrate. Sheaths open; ligules of hairs or membranous and ciliate. Inflorescences terminal, simple panicles or panicles of spikelike primary branches, usually with capillary secondary branches and pedicels; disarticulation below the glumes, sometimes also below the upper florets, the upper florets then falling first. Spikelets with 2 florets. Lower glumespresent or absent, 0-1-veined, unawned; upper glumes equaling or exceeding the florets, sometimes gibbous basally, 5-7-veined, emarginate to bilobed, awned or unawned; lower florets staminate or sterile; lower lemmas similar to the upper glumes, but not gibbous; upper florets bisexual, laterally compressed; upper lemmas subcoriaceous, glabrous, smooth, unawned; upper paleas resembling the upper lemmas; lodicules 2, fleshy or membranous. x = 9. Name from the Greek meline, millet. SELECTED REFERENCES Anderson, H.M. 1991. Melinis P. Beauv. Pp. 210-213 in G.E. Gibbs Russell, L. Watson, M. Koekemoer, L. Smook, N.P. Barker, H.M. Anderson, and M.J. Dallwitz. Grasses of Southern Africa (ed. O.A. Leistner). National Botanic Gardens, Botanical Research Institute, Pretoria, Republic of South Africa. 437 pp.; Zizka, G.1988. Revision der Melinideae Hitchcock (Poaceae, Panicoideae). Biblioth. Bot. 138:1-149; Zizka, G. 1990. Taxonomy of the Melinideae (Poaceae: Panicoideae). Mitt. Inst. Allg. Bot. Hamburg 23:563-572. T.A. Cope (1995) Poaceae (Gramineae). Flora of Somalia 4: 148-270 Plants annual or perennial. Leaves flat or filiform; ligules consisting of a line of hairs. Inflorescences simple panicles with capillary branches. Spikelets laterally compreseed, glabrous to conspicuously silky-hairy; lower glumes small, sometimes distant from the upper; upper glumes exceeding the flortets, firmly membranous to chartaceous or subcoriaceous, sometimes becoming thinner towards the tips, backs straight or somewhat gibbous below the middle, sometimes tapering to a beak, tips usually emarginate to bilobed, rareluy entire, often awned from the sinuses; lower florets staminate or neutral; lower lemmas resembling the upper glumes or narrower and less gibbous, their paleas present or absent; upper lemmas laterally compressed, often deciduous before the rest of the spikelet, caritlaginous, smooth, their margins flat and more or less enfolding the paleas. Caryopses oblong to oblong-ellipsoid. Melinis includes about 22 species. Its native range extends from the Mediterranean region and Africa to India. ©Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; reproduced with permission. Keys to the species of Melinis in Somaliland and Somalia. Global distribution of Melinis. Note: GBIF records include introduced and cultivated plants. Consequently, the distribution shown often differs from statements about a taxon's native distribution. |