Pseudozoysia Chiov.
Habit, vegetative morphology. Perennial. Culms herbaceous. Leaf blades narrow; setaceous; rolled (involute); without cross venation.
Reproductive organization. Plants bisexual, with bisexual spikelets; with hermaphrodite florets. The spikelets all alike in sexuality.
Inflorescence. Inflorescence a false spike, with spikelets on contracted axes (cylindrical, of short ‘racemelets’, basally enclosed in the upper leaf sheatrh); espatheate; not comprising ‘partial inflorescences’ and foliar organs. Spikelet-bearing axes very much reduced (to two contiguous spikelets); disarticulating (?); falling entire (the racemelets falling, cf. Tragus etc.?). Spikelets paired; not secund; consistently in ‘long-and-short’ combinations. The ‘shorter’ spikelets hermaphrodite. The ‘longer’ spikelets hermaphrodite.
Female-fertile spikelets. Spikelets not noticeably compressed (?); falling with the glumes (with the racemelet?). Rachilla terminated by a female-fertile floret. Hairy callus absent.
Glumes two; relatively large; exceeding the spikelets; long relative to the adjacent lemmas; hairless; not pointed; awnless; non-carinate; very dissimilar (indurated, tuberculate, acute, the lower ovate, the upper subglobose). Lower glume and the upper tuberculate. Upper glume distinctly saccate (enclosing the floret). Spikelets with female-fertile florets only.
Female-fertile florets 1. Lemmas less firm than the glumes (scarious); not becoming indurated; entire; blunt; awnless; hairless; non-carinate; without a germination flap. Palea present; conspicuous but relatively short (about half as long as the lemma); not indurated.
Abaxial leaf blade epidermis. Costal/intercostal zonation conspicuous. Microhairs present; chloridoid-type. Stomata common. Subsidiaries dome-shaped and triangular. Intercostal short-cells common (fairly); not paired (mainly solitary). Costal short-cells conspicuously in long rows. Costal silica bodies ‘panicoid-type’; dumb-bell shaped; not sharp-pointed.
Transverse section of leaf blade, physiology. Lamina mid-zone in transverse section open.
C4; XyMS+. Bulliforms present in discrete, regular adaxial groups; probably associated with colourless mesophyll cells to form deeply-penetrating fans (?). All the vascular bundles accompanied by sclerenchyma. Combined sclerenchyma girders present (with all the bundles); forming ‘figures’. Sclerenchyma all associated with vascular bundles.
Taxonomy. Chloridoideae; main chloridoid assemblage.
Distribution, ecology, phytogeography. 1 species; Somalia. Xerophytic; species of open habitats; halophytic. In coastal sand dunes.
Paleotropical. African. Sudano-Angolan. Somalo-Ethiopian.
Special comments. Fruit data wanting. Anatomical data wanting.
Cite this publication as: Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M. J. (1992 onwards). ‘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.’ http://biodiversity.uno.edu/delta/. Version: 18th August 1999. Dallwitz (1980), Dallwitz, Paine and Zurcher (1993 onwards, 1998), and Watson and Dallwitz (1994), and Watson, Dallwitz, and Johnston (1986) should also be cited (see References).