The grass genera of the world
The grass genera of the world | |
Including Gelidocalamus Wen, Ferrocalamus Hsueh & Keng f.
Excluding Monocladus
Habit, vegetative morphology. Perennial (shrubs). The flowering culms leafy. Culms slender, 60–300 cm high; woody and persistent; branched above. Primary branches/mid-culm node 1 (but producing many branches later). Culm sheaths persistent. Rhizomes leptomorph. Plants unarmed. Leaves not basally aggregated; with auricular setae. Leaf blades broad, or narrow; 5–25 mm wide; cordate, or not cordate, not sagittate; pseudopetiolate; cross veined, or without cross venation; disarticulating from the sheaths; rolled in bud. Ligule present; a fringed membrane; short. Contra-ligule present (in the species seen).
Reproductive organization. Plants bisexual, with bisexual spikelets; with hermaphrodite florets.
Inflorescence. Inflorescence paniculate; spatheate, or espatheate (the panicles spatheate or not, terminating leafy or leafless shoots); a complex of ‘partial inflorescences’ and intervening foliar organs, or not comprising ‘partial inflorescences’ and foliar organs. Spikelet-bearing axes paniculate; persistent. Spikelets not secund.
Female-fertile spikelets. Spikelets 8–18 mm long; with distinctly elongated rachilla internodes between the florets. Rachilla prolonged beyond the uppermost female-fertile floret; the rachilla extension with incomplete florets.
Glumes two; very unequal; shorter than the adjacent lemmas; awnless; similar (membranous). Lower glume 9 nerved (in material seen). Upper glume 9 nerved (in material seen). Spikelets with incomplete florets. The incomplete florets distal to the female-fertile florets. Spikelets without proximal incomplete florets.
Female-fertile florets 3–8. Lemmas sometimes tessellate; 7 nerved, or 9 nerved (in material seen). Palea present; relatively long; several nerved (3–5 nerved in material seen); 2-keeled. Stamens 3. Stigmas 2.
Fruit, embryo and seedling. Fruit longitudinally grooved, or not grooved. Pericarp fleshy (at least, in Ferrocalamus, Wen and He 1989), or thin (?); fused (Gelidocalamus and others), or free (Ferrocalamus). Seed endospermic (Gelidocalamus and others), or ‘non-endospermic’ (Ferrocalamus). Endosperm when present, containing compound starch grains.
Abaxial leaf blade epidermis. Costal/intercostal zonation conspicuous. Papillae present (large, thick-walled); costal and intercostal. Intercostal papillae over-arching the stomata; several per cell (one row per cell). Mid-intercostal long-cells rectangular; having markedly sinuous walls (these thin). Microhairs present; panicoid-type; 45–52.5 microns long (in I. debilis); 5.1–6 microns wide at the septum. Microhair total length/width at septum 7.5–10.2. Microhair apical cells 21–25.5 microns long. Microhair apical cell/total length ratio 0.47–0.5. Stomata common (alongside the veins); 24–28.5 microns long (in I. debilis). Subsidiaries parallel-sided and dome-shaped. Guard-cells overlapped by the interstomatals. Intercostal short-cells common; not paired; silicified. Costal short-cells neither distinctly grouped into long rows nor predominantly paired. Costal silica bodies ‘panicoid-type’.
Transverse section of leaf blade, physiology. C3; XyMS+. Mesophyll with non-radiate chlorenchyma; with adaxial palisade; with arm cells; with fusoids. The fusoids external to the PBS. Midrib conspicuous (larger bundle); with one bundle only. Bulliforms present in discrete, regular adaxial groups; in simple fans. All the vascular bundles accompanied by sclerenchyma. Combined sclerenchyma girders present; forming ‘figures’ (with most bundles). Sclerenchyma all associated with vascular bundles.
Cytology. Chromosome base number, x = 12. 2n = 48. 4 ploid.
Taxonomy. Bambusoideae; Bambusodae; Bambuseae.
Distribution, ecology, phytogeography. 6 species; tropical Asia. Woodland, and forming thickets in open country.
Paleotropical. Indomalesian. Indian and Indo-Chinese.
Economic importance. Leaves of I. longiauritus and I. sinicus used for wrapping Chinese tamales, for lining baskets, for roofing boats etc.
References, etc. Leaf anatomical: this project.
Special comments. Fruit data wanting.
Illustrations. • Abaxial epidermis of leaf blade (I. debilis). • Abaxial epidermis of leaf blade (I. debilis)
This description is offered for casual browsing only. We strongly advise against extracting comparative information from it. This is much more easily achieved using the interactive key, which allows access to the character list, illustrations, full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting specified attributes, summaries of attributes within groups of taxa, geographical distribution, classification, and species sampled for anatomy.
Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M.J. 1992 onwards. The grass genera of the world: descriptions, illustrations, identification, and information retrieval; including synonyms, morphology, anatomy, physiology, phytochemistry, cytology, classification, pathogens, world and local distribution, and references. Version: 11th February 2012. http://delta-intkey.com’.
