Description :

• Perennial, erect or straggling
• Leaf blade expanded, ovate or ovate-lanceolate, long-acuminate, acute, with cross veins, contracted at base into a short pseudo-petiole, disarticulating from sheaths; ligule an unfringed or a fringed membrane
• Inflorescence a panicle, open or contracted, either solitary or two from upper leaf sheath; spikelets solitary, pedicelled, unisexual; male spikelets usually just below female spikelets on lower part of inflorescence
• Male spikelet on filiform pedicels, narrow and smaller than female, readily deciduous; glumes 0 or represented by an obscure rim
• Floret 1; lemma lanceolate, membranous, prominently keeled, 3-nerved, shortly awned; palea equalling or shorter than lemma, 2-nerved, membranous
• Lodicules 3, rarely 2, small, cuneate
• Stamens 3; anthers linear

• Female spikelet on clavate pedicels, dorsiventrally compressed; glumes unequal or ± equal, equal to longer than spikelet, ovate to lanceolate, herbaceous, 5-9-nerved, cross-veined, acuminate, awned; awn flexuous, longer than glume, up to 20 mm long
• Floret 1; lemma becoming indurated, crustaceous, white, shining, ovate, elliptic or lanceolate, convex, dorsally obtuse, entire, awnless; callus 0; palea similar to lemma
• Lodicules 3, truncate, cuneate
• Stamens 0
• Ovary ± ellipsoid, acuminate, glabrous; styles connate at base or beyond middle; stigmas plumose
• x = 7, 10, 11 (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Olyra L.
  • Linnaeus: 1261 (1759)
  • Stapf: 746 (1900)
  • Chippindall: 453 (1955)
  • Clayton: 17 (1970)
  • Launert: 23 (1971)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 62 (1986)
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 226 (1990)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 656 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species 23, mainly tropical and subtropical America and Africa
• Southern Africa : Species 1: Olyra latifolia L., KwaZulu-Natal into Eastern Cape