Pseudopogonatherum

Pseudopogonatherum Ann. Soc. Linn. Lyon ser.2. 68: 204 (1921).

Derivation:. From Greek pseudo (false) and pogonatherum, alluding to the similarity to the genus Pogonatherum.

Taxonomic revisions, nomenclatural references:. N.L.Bor, Grasses of Burma, Ceylon, India and Pakistan (excluding Bambuseae)  204–205 (1960).

Key references (keys and floras):. G.Bentham, Flora Australiensis 7:459–462 (1878) as Pollinia in part; E.E.Henty, Manual Grasses New Guinea 163, 165 (1969); M.Lazarides, Tropical Grasses S.E. Asia 62–63 (1980); J.C.Tothill and J.B.Hacker, Grasses of Southern Queensland 358–359 (1983); B.K.Simon, Flora of the Kimberley Region 1209, 1212 (1992); B.K.Simon, Key to Australian Grasses 152 (1993); D.Sharp and B.K.Simon, AusGrass (2002).

W.D.Clayton & S.A.Renvoize, Genera Graminum (1986), genus (syn. of Eulalia).

Native. 2 species, from tropical Asia to Australia. 2 species in Australia, WA, NT, and Qld. Also New Guinea and Malesia.

Habit. Annual or perennial, tufted. Leaf blades very narrow. Ligule a fringed membrane (short).

Inflorescence. Inflorescence of spicate main branches (having several spike-like racemes on a short axis), of digitate or subdigitate racemes or spikes, open, digitate. Spikelet-bearing axes racemes (shortly pedunculate), with homomorphic spikelets, when disarticulating, disarticulating at joints. Internodes glabrous on the back, with villous-ciliate edges.

Spikelets. Spikelets dorsally compressed, 2 flowered, with 1 fertile floret, paired (unequally), subsessile and pedicelled, unequally pedicelled in each combination; with lower incomplete floret. Fertile spikelets falling with glumes (falling from the pedicels, or persistent on pedicels and internodes).

Glumes. Glumes more or less equal, long relative to adjacent lemmas, awned. Lower glume two-keeled or not two-keeled, convex on back or concave on back (slightly), relatively smooth, 2 nerved. Upper glume 1 nerved.

Florets. Lower incomplete floret(s) sterile. Fertile florets 1. Lemmas less firm than glumes, incised, deeply cleft (bifid) or not deeply cleft (emarginate), awned, 0 nerved, glabrous. Awns 1, from a sinus, geniculate, hairy (villous-ciliate at the edges of the column). Palea nerveless. Callus blunt. Lodicules 2. Stamens 3. Grain compressed dorsiventrally to terete. Hilum short. Embryo large.

Kranz Anatomy. C4.

2n = 40.

Classification. Panicoideae; Andropogoneae.

Notes. Placed in synonymy with Eulalia (Clayton and Renvoize, 1986). Kept separate in Australian literature on the basis of the spikelets being unequally pedicelled, whereas one of the spikelet pairs in Eulalia is sessile, the typical andropogonoid condition (B.K.Simon).

Types Species. P. irritans (R.Br.) A.Camus.

Biogeographic Element. Clifford & Simon 1981, Simon & Jacobs 1990: Indo-Malayan.

AVH 2011

Scratchpads developed and conceived by (alphabetical): Ed Baker, Katherine Bouton Alice Heaton Dimitris Koureas, Laurence Livermore, Dave Roberts, Simon Rycroft, Ben Scott, Vince Smith